Polyworld vol.7 no 1 spring 1988

In this issue Don Wheeler is the new president.  Ed Barr is named president of DIC America overseeing all the DIC holdings in US including Polychrome, the official start up of KII, etc.
Read detail HERE.

F Line in Yonkers, white voids

After the successful coating of the first positive plate on the diazo film coating equipment in Fernwood, PA just before the DRUPA 1968,  we started to look for a suitable solvent coater in Yonkers plant.       All the plate coatings till then were water based coating and did not require solvent coater.     Mr. Gumbinner took me to Chicago to visit a coating machine manufacturer and within a year we brought in our first solvent coater; F line.          We learned the importance of clean air and good filtration as we were plagued with white voids.          I was young and had a good pairs of eyes to detect even the tiniest white voids.   ( which on development tended to be amplified!)         The white voids  turned out to be the enemy of all the coatings be it photographic film or thermal printing plate and became a focus of attention in every new product development since then.      
The Osterode plant soon followed and we entered the ara of solvent coating         Having the solvent coating capability allowed us to transition to the up and coming "subtractive"type plate line up .

Polyworld Vol 3 no.3 Fall '84

Here is another Polyworld from 1984.      You can read all the pages HERE

Annual Report 1981

After DIC's purchase of Polychrome in 1979, we no longer needed to publish Annual Report.    Nevertheless the company published beautifully printed Annual Reports.     It was speculated that DIC had intention to make part of Polychrome public again; but it never took place.

click HERE for the entire content.

Chrome Guide and Posimatte, neutralizing components

Positive Chrome Guide was easy to construct as the positive diazo and dye mixed nicely and produced stable coating.      Negative working system was another story.       Negative diazo was less stable than positive diazo and reacted readily with dyes.        In color proofing system much higher level of dyes were needed for an intensive colors required for imaging.       Therefore the dyes caused premature aging and the discoloration.        It was necessary to neutralize the dyes to avoid such issues.      Understanding the mechanism Al Deutsh suggested to react the dye with the component used for the "V" coating.        In many of our subsequent  plate patents extensive  references are made for the use of a D-11 dye.      This is one of the side benefit of Chrome Guide research as we understood the chemistry and interaction of diazo sensitizer and dyes thoroughly.        Even in the positive system, we found neutralizing the dye was useful.       Posimatte positive plate featured very high print out image due to the big contrast between exposed and unexposed area made possible by our experience and understanding in Chrome Guide dyes.           Interestingly European market preferred strong image contrast After the development rather than Before, so the strong print out feature worked out by Jim Shelnut was never incorporated in European product line and found acceptance only in the US market.

Old pictures from Polychrome GmbH

These are the collection of pictures  supplied by Peter Herting.    Old Aufa-Polychrome, Osterode factory, Katzenstein factory, Mr. Halpern with GmbH personnel,  Konrad Richter, C. van Lynden, Klaus Zimmerman and others along with headquarter personnel are a part of a CD collection Peter had.   Thanks Peter.