Has any one tried these alternative archival washers. Although they are beautiful, it seems to me that the Calumet and Zone 6 washers are unnecessarily pretty. The following washers are half the price. Are they any good???

http://www.redvillage.cncfamily.com/index.html http://www.versalab.com/server/photo/products/washer1.htm#washer

-- Craig Brown (csbrown@tastybuzz.com), September 17, 1999

Answers

I can recommend the Nova Rapid Washer. It was designed for the RA 4 process but also lends itself to FB washing. A 30 by 40 cm model costs about 250 DEM (that would be around 130 USD, I guess). It has one advantage when compared to the Red Village washers: The "compartments" for the prints are separated so that inserting a new print in one copartment does not contaminate those already in the other one. The drawback is, however, that it will just handle two maximum-size prints at a time, but this is not really a problem for me.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), September 21, 1999.

I've had a versalab for over two years. It's sturdy, but not as pretty as Zone VI, etc. But works very well, according to my residual hypo tests. It saved me so much money I can easily love plain instead of pretty.

-- John Sarsgard (Endive4U@aol.com), September 24, 1999.