On 4/28/2005 2:17 AM Michael J Rodney Sr. spake thus:

Depends; I made my own, basically a "window", a stout wood frame that holds
the glass, hinged to a piece of plywood. I put thin sheets of foam rubber
underneath the film/paper sandwich to bring it up to the level of the glass,
then lock the frame down with a latch. Works extremely well. Requires minimal
woodworking skills.

If these you lack, I guess you have to buy a ready-made contact frame. eBay?
(I've got one on there right now, but it's only a 5x7.)

I picked up one of these recently:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=4
6133&is=REG

It's basically just a hunk of plastic with grooves for seven 5-frame
strips of film, so you can fit 35 exposures on one 8x10 sheet of paper, at
least if cutting the film in 5-exposure strips is acceptable to you. It
does the job; however, the emulsion side of the film passes awfully close
to a sharp plastic edge, so I'm nervous that I might end up scratching
film. (I've only used it to proof one roll of film, but didn't scratch any
negatives.) It's also awfully expensive for a fairly simple piece of
plastic.

Thanks to all who responded.

As Rod and Nicholas suggested, for twenty bucks, I'll order the Saunders and
try it.

Twenty bucks is a lot to spend on photo gear, but what the hell. :)

While I am waiting for it to arrive, I will also make one similar to David's
suggestion, from a bit of aged plywood my bride threatened to throw out long
ago, the glass pane I already have, and a bit o' foam.

Black and White Magazine, here I come.......

Michael,

A couple of thoughts.  When I first started out doing my contacts with
glass, I used thin (1/8 inch) picture frame glass.  This is clearly not
robust enough to hold the negatives to the paper.  I stopped by a glass
store, and they had a piece of slightly irregular 11X14 1/4 inch
glass(for free), which has worked great- just sand the edges and be
carefull of the dust.  Also, make sure that the emulsion side of the
negative is next to the paper.  Lastly, if your negs have been recently
developed, they may still have some curvature., which tends to push the
neg away from the paper- i may press gently along the glass edges
during exposure to keep them flat.  Good luck.