The last picture Ed Wesly took in Gallery 1134 was of this device:
Victor Heredia, his amigo from that place was standing there and Ed asked him, “Have you ever seen this thing before? Do you know what it does?” And Victor didn’t know.
Ed explained it was a scaled up version of a color print developing drum that he had built in the spring of 1981. The reason Victor did not know what it was was because Loren Billings did not want Victor to see the machine, as she was afraid that Victor would blab about it to the LaserSmith or other competitors. So Ed could only work on it after Victor left for the day.
And although Ed had built the machine, John Hoffmann would not let him see the set up for shooting the yard square hologram set up, as there were several “patentable secrets” on the table. Such was the environment that Gallery 1134 fostered.
After hearing Ed’s story, the current owner of 1134 West Washington, who had been eavesdropping, unbeknownst to the two veterans of the joint, quipped, “You know where all the bodies are buried!”
The drum is composed of a 14 inch diameter plexiglass cylinder capped by a pair of 5 gallon paint bucket lids with holes cut in them, big enough to stick a hand holding a half liter beaker of processing solution through it. The big piece of film was stuck in the inner circumference of the drum, the motor was started to spin the drum, the hand with the beaker was stuck through the hole, poured the chemistry into the drum and started the clock to time the process. When development was over, (and you could see how it was progressing because of the clear drum and safe light in the darkroom) the drum was taken off the wagon wheels and the film was hosed down to stop the development and clean the film for the next step. Very little chemistry was necessary for such a big piece of film.
This device was left behind for the dumpster divers!