[Leica] Spiratone Stabilizer Processor

[ealadner at comcast.net (Eric Ladner)]

On Jun 22, 2005, at 6:28 PM, Afterswift@aol.com wrote:

> Re traditional darkroom, has anyone had experience using the Spiratone
> Processor, a machine that mass produced RC prints up to about 11x16?

I never used the Spiratone, but through the '80s and early '90s I used 
an Agfa Rapidoprint processor (up to 16, or maybe 18 inches wide). It 
had four stages, originally activator, stabilizer, fix, and rinse. I 
had the recirculating rinse converted to running water as soon as I got 
it (even with a regulator, we occasionally flooded the floor when the 
pressure varied too much), and somewhere along the line I started using 
acetic acid stop instead of stabilizer. The plastic started to crack 
about '92 or so, and I finally gave up on it, but I still have some of 
the prints. I did sometimes do an extra fix and wash on important ones.

It was a valuable machine for a jack-of-all-trades in-house 
photographer in a biotech company. Besides any developer-incorporated 
paper, it would process Agfa's high-contrast paper (I don't recall its 
name) for line work, and an Agfa graphic arts film (RA711p?) that was 
available from 35mm to large sheets. The 35mm was great for quick white 
on black slides, or for the intermediate step in making the white on 
blue slides that were so popular back then.

Speaking of Spiratone, I wish they were still around. No one offers 
such a wonderful collection of gadgets today. Some of them were silly 
(the right angle lens attachments for taking pictures of girls on the 
beach--at least that's what the little drawing in the catalog always 
showed), but I used their darkroom timers for years, and I still have 
their macro focussing rail.

--Eric Ladner