Achtung!

The warning labels on things almost never seem really helpful to me. There are so many then tend to just be noise, and if you honestly don't know better than to blow dry your hair standing in a tub of water, you probably aren't going to make it far enough to need the memo about operating heavy machinery while taking prescription sedatives.

I see a lot of warning labels and say to myself, Self, coffee is hot, ice is slippery, it's nobody's fault so don't bother trying to sue.

Then there's the labels that aren't there, but maybe should be. I know a guy who once found himself wishing there's been a label on jalapeño peppers about how, after slicing them, it's a good idea to wash your hands before you go to the bathroom. I think he called 9-11, his unit was burning that badly.

My Dremel had warnings on it, all over the place. But nothing about not using it to grind down the callouses on your heel.

But my friend won't ever handle himself with capsicum coated fingers again, and I won't use my Dremel for improvised home surgery a second time either. So warning labels would be of limited value.

The ones we really need are like this. Where I work, we finally got a metal plate CTP unit (if you've ever played with nasty film chemistry, you'll appreciate how happy I am about that; and if you want a defunct Devotec 20 film processor for some bizarre reason, I know where you can get one dirt cheap). I can't remember for sure, but I don't think the Agfa was up and running before the first of the year.

It kicks ass, especially since a lot of jobs we've been using polyester plates for, but that get reordered without changes a lot of times, we can make a metal plate for just slightly more money (and I mean slightly) and use it as many times as the job gets reordered. Plus, you don't fight plate stretching and screens look tons better.



The door mechanism, however, has broken twice since we got it. The first time was right after it got there, and being a used unit, you just never know. The second time was when we had an Agfa tech out for a calibration issue. He was super apologetic (and the guys I've dealt with from Agfa are all sharp), seemed embarrassed.

He said, 'I tell people, don't lean on the hood, don't set stuff up there, and then I go and hit the open button with my tool box on there.'

The stripped gears in the release motor aren't on us this time. But I'm thinking, we got 90 days, basically, of warranty with this thing. If a guy who works on the machine and warns people about this all the time can forget and break it...

So I made a warning label. Had to speedbag the guy a bit, I guess. Fortunately he has a sense of humor.