Some of the tests required bright light while others required total darkness. The first part would be easy but the latter required sealing off the eight by ten foot windows with thick sheets of black plastic. Maze-like light baffles made of more black plastic also had to be built for the doorways. The testing table was set up in the Shroud room and the adjoining rooms were established as staging areas for testing and calibrating equipment. The bathroom, the only source of water, was converted into a darkroom for developing X-rays and other photography. Equipment that malfunctioned had to be repaired on-site with replacement parts the team had brought from the U.S. or by adapting locally available equipment. Quite a few square pegs would be forced into round holes over the next several days.
Finally, on Sunday night at about midnight, someone in the hall said, "Here it comes."
Monsignor Cottino, the representative of Turin's Archbishop-Cardinal, entered the Shroud testing room, followed by twelve men carrying a sheet of three-quarter inch plywood, four feet wide and sixteen feet long. Draped over the plywood was a piece of expensive red silk which covered and protected the Shroud. The men were accompanied by seven Poor Claire nuns, the senior of which began to slowly pull back the silk as the men lowered the plywood sheet to waist level. The testing table, which could be rotated ninety degrees to the right or left, sat parallel to the ground, awaiting the transfer of the Shroud.