MirkoBoeddecker
We would like to take this opportunity to give you a brief update on the progress being made with the commissioning of our casting machine. This will determine when the CHS 100 II will be available again.
The installation of filter technology and pressure-boosting fans in the dryer has been completed and the results are excellent. We are now in the process of optimising the system. However, we have to start from scratch again, as some changes have been made.
This means the entire layer structure must pass through the dryer hundreds of times, each time with slightly altered drying profiles, wetting agents and water content.
Ultimately, it must be strip-free, dry but not too dry. We must get this point exactly right. The tests are currently being carried out in daylight using gelatine packs without silver halides. In the next step, we will then practise in the dark. If everything goes according to plan, the CHS 100 II could see the light of day again in the first quarter of 2017.
The situation is similar with the Polywarmtone. There, the raw material – which has already been substituted once and now needs to be substituted again – has been fully synthesised, so that research and development can continue in January. Shortly after the film, we might then be able to move on to the machine with a preliminary version of the Polywarmtone. A preliminary version means that not all target specifications may yet have been implemented (we are not just replicating the paper; we have also improved it in many areas), but that the reproduction range and tonal range – in other words, the overall image impression – could already be tested.
