[Ian C]

The following is from The Basic Darkroom Book, Tom Grimm, 1978, Plume Books, New American Library, New York, London and Scarborough, Ontario (Canada)

Pages 266-268, Making Photo Murals

Here is the relevant passage on page 267:

“You can buy processing tanks designed especially for large prints. One such product is the Maxwell Photo-Mural Tank, for processing prints up to 30 x 40 inches. These are available through camera stores, or you can write directly to,

Maxwell Photo-Mural Tanks
999 East Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, California 91901


Tanks like the Maxwell type are light-tight tubes with an apron. The photo paper is rolled up in the apron, which keeps the paper from sticking to itself and allows chemicals to cover its emulsion.”

This company and its products no longer exist and I have never seen any such used tubes for sale. I have seen other even larger tubes for processing mural papers in darkroom books of the same era, usually the early to late 1970s.

The Maxwell Photo-Mural Tubes are illustrated on page 99 of the November 1976 issue of Popular Mechanics in the article, “You Can Make Giant Prints at Home.” There is also a photo and general description of an automated CPI Deville mural processor. Additionally, there is a print-transport device called “The Big Dipper” and a simpler version called “The Little Dipper” for handling mural prints while processing.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ouI...-mural&f=false