Summary

Black and white silver gelatin photograph of interior view of the Finishing Room of Building 2, Emulsion Making, under construction at the Kodak factory, Coburg, November 1958.

The Finishing Room was on the first floor of Building 2 and featured a steel reinforced concrete floor, columns and ceiling. It also had solid brick internal walls. Locations in the concrete floor have been prepared for the installation of stainless steel emulsion kettles. Stainless steel frames have been set in the back brick wall for the installation of the kettles' respective control panels. Since this room normally operated under ultra-clean and safelight conditions, provision was made for a services corridor behind this wall, enabling trade and technical staff to attend to control equipment under white light conditions without interrupting the darkroom operations.

Batches of emulsion were made in Making Kettles where chemicals, silver nitrate, gelatin and halide salts were added into distilled water under a strictly controlled regime of mixing and temperature conditions. After setting and shredding, excess nitrates were washed out with treated water and passed on to the Finishing Kettles. Here further chemicals were added to control speed, contrast, and in the case of colour product emulsions, sensitizing dyes to make the emulsion responsive to specific colours of red, green and blue light. Each emulsion batch was then run off into stainless steel cans, cooled, weighed and stored ready for use in the coating operations. Each batch was sampled for trial coatings and sensitometry. From these results larger batches would be made by blending the smaller batches to make sufficient emulsion for a coating run.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as, film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005 after the manufacturing plant at Coburg had closed down the year before.

Description of Content

Image of interior of room with featuring a steel reinforced concrete floor, columns, beams and ceiling. The room is enclosed with a brick wall interspersed with open stainless steel frames. Three widely ridged holes in the floor have been prepared for the installation of stainless steel temperature controlled kettles.

Physical Description

Black and white silver gelatin photograph printed on light weight paper, landscape format.

More Information