Early Days

Holy cow, the JTTC folks have been so busy of late we haven’t even had time to check our horoscopes this month!

Brendan had another baby (don’t ask me to remember the name but it was a boy), I’ve been busy at my day job at Studio Papa designing the hell out of the Perth Fringe World Festival and have just finished the Studio Bomba rebrand for their exciting new share-studio/shop/café which I’ve now relocated to and found a new HQ for the club at the same time. If that wasn’t enough, Studio Lost & Found have been busy jet setting about for wine judging competitions and packing up their studio for an exciting new location which is how we came to stumble across our first exposure rig tucked away in the corner of their shed.

Back when we first formed JTTC we were trying to figure out how to expose silk screens on a budget and I Macgyvered this rig together that did a pretty decent job. At this point I should insert a full disclaimer that I don’t suggest you go and do this at home, nor do I suggest that this rig is really that safe in any way. It was something I built that did the job at the time but now we’ve moved on to a bigger, professionally built and more importantly a safety tested unit that we love that wont burn down our friends homes or children – something you come to care about as you get older.

HOWEVER, this thing is pretty boss right? I bought the only positionable outdoor light housings I could find, sawed the housings down so I could mount the most powerful UV lights I could get my hands on and screwed them to a piece of pine with a power board taped to it. I had a careful arrangement of strings that I would suspend the rig with from the ceiling of my garage at the time (“the caddy shack”) with adjustor strings to tweak length of the suspension on the left and right side before taping it off.

Whilst this will never compare to a pro unit with a bed of long UV lights to give a nice even exposure, this DIY unit was the thing that let us get our toes wet without burning the bank or luckily our fingers, and I don’t think I can bring myself to dismantle it just yet. I think I’ll tuck it into another shed corner for now and look forward to discovering it again in another few years.