Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/03

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Kodachrome Solution
From: "Bill Lawlor" <wvl@infinex.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 21:18:59 -0800
References: <200204020853.AAA23859@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>

David, I'm amazed at the story of DIY Kodachrome processing. When I was a
student I worked summers on the first Kodachrome film processor licensed by
Kodak. It was built about 1960/61 by Drewry Photocolor Corp. of Glendale CA.
Two of us worked each twelve hour shift. I usually worked inside the machine
in the dark with a pair of staple guns in holsters in case of a break in the
film. Film was spliced with a cement into 4000 foot reels by little old
Mexican ladies in a dark room. It ran about 135 ft/minute in and out of many
vertical tanks of nasty chemicals. When one of the hundreds of nylon rollers
siezed the film would break and an alarm woke me up. I would reach into the
tanks in the dark, retreive the loose end and pull it into a garbage can of
water untill another guy could get inside and splice leader onto the
outgoing film and restore tension. I was the only guy who didn't get bad
dermatitis from the chemistry so I got the inside job for the great rate of
$1.65/hour.

The processor ran 35mm on one side and 16mm on the other. We either ran film
or blank leader 24 hrs a day. It was very noisy and misty in that machine
but I guess it didn't hurt me in the long run.

The Kodachrome process was invented by a couple of musicians who did all the
R & D in an appartment in N.Y. in the 1930's. Simply amazing!

Bill Lawlor

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Replies: Reply from Marc Attinasi <marc@attinasi.org> (Re: [Leica] Re: Kodachrome Solution)