At one time, Ferrania was a large company and part of the 3M family. They had plants in Minnesota, Rochester and Italy as well as several elsewhere. At present, they are in bankruptcy proceedings in Italy, but are still producing film. So, they are dwindling rather than vanished. Sorry.
As for specialty papers, if photo paper and film support were easy to make, I would expect to see more than just two or three major producers. Schoeller in Germany suppies Kodak WW and Central and Western European companies. And, FYI, to supply WW paper supplies for photo use, 900 ft/min is SLOW! Width is important as well as is 'press'. Photo paper is, in some cases, over 80" wide hot press. RC paper takes several additional operations to produce.
Papers contain stabilzers and humectants to prevent cracking of the support during aging. Remember, the papers you are talking about may be used one time and discarded, photos are expected to last.
As for specialty papers, if photo paper and film support were easy to make, I would expect to see more than just two or three major producers.
PE
Yes, I understand the underlying paper base is very complex for commercial photo papers, however there are papers made for inkjet printing that seem (at least to me) to be at least as complex in construction as the base papers used for photographic emulsions. It would seem to me that (considering this) that the complex manufacturing of RC coated, and fibre based paper stocks is not in danger, rather the COATING of these papers with a photographic emulsion is dwindling.
Both are in danger. If you consider that single weight paper is in short supply due to the lack of demand for the coated products. FB paper is declining overall due to lack of demand for all coated analog products. RC is not declining as much as digital is coated in an RC type support. It is thinner, but similar.
After taking the course offered by photo engineer, I decided to try building a small tabletop coating machine that I could use to coat paper and film up to 16" wide. I received all the machined parts yesterday from the local machine shop and plan to start working on construction this weekend. I imagine that there will be some tweaking required to get it to work consistently, but I believe I have a sound design. It will be a one shot deal, in that a single pull will coat a substrate up to 16x20.
I hope to have it working well enough by the end of the winter to use for coating Photo Engineers emulsions. If not, well.... I'll have some really cool looking stainless steel scraps that will function as very effective paper weights....
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Don Sigl
www.drs-fineartphoto.com
Love your insert but it's very far from industrial facilities! This mashines is to coate "some" holographic plates on glass say a couple of it during a week!
A plant have many so called around equipment too! Not just a table!
Well, certainly not comparable to Kodak facilities, the “professional” device I mentioned, is capable of coating glass plates of 1 x 1m size and PET (“polyester”) film up to 1000m length (3280 ft) at 30cm width.
My point is that specialized products can be manufactured to exacting standards by small companies. Whether the manufacture of photographic products could be economically viable, I don't know. As Ron points out, there are lots of film and paper sizes. Again, not easy, but possible with good engineering.
juan
but it's very far from industrial facilities! This mashines is to coate "some" holographic plates on glass say a couple of it during a week!
Linear Mode
