karsten
Just a quick question about rinsing film:
Up until now, I’ve always found it easy to rinse everything using a Cascade at 20°C. Now I’m moving my darkroom and I’ll be using a small instant water heater whose pressure isn’t strong enough for the Cascade, so I’d only be able to rinse with ‘cold tap water’. Will the film mind the cold water? The same goes for washing baryta paper; I was thinking of that large Kaiser tub with a bubbler, but that would only be cold too. As an alternative, my plumber would of course install a proper pressurised boiler and thermostatic mixer tap for a few hundred quid :-(. Can I save myself this conversion cost?
How do you lot go about rinsing? I’d be very grateful for some expert advice.
Grobkorn
Hi Karsten,
I think rinsing with tap water only works in summer.
If the water is too cold, you’ll run into two problems straight away:
1. Your films might develop wrinkles if you rinse them with cold tap water after the 20°C fixer.
2. Washing is unlikely to work well with cold water. I foresee problems with archival stability.
I have similar problems to yours in my darkroom. I use a kettle to prepare the 20°C solution/wash water and a simple 5-litre under-sink unit for washing photographic paper. I set this to the lowest temperature, and the water temperature then stabilises at around 20°C. This was an inexpensive solution. I then rinse my films using the Ilford method (see their data sheets).
Incidentally, I also used to have problems with ‘dust on the film’ after drying. This dust turned out to be dirt in the water. So I ordered a Paterson filter from our host and since then I’ve had spotless negatives ;)
Best regards,
Christoph
Stagirit
With paper, the temperature isn’t that important, but it shouldn’t be too warm, otherwise the gelatin will melt away.
With film, however, the temperature must be strictly maintained!
An alternative to the cascade is hand-wetting, i.e. you heat a few litres of water to 20°C and use it to wet the film.
I always do it as follows:
Empty the first two beakers after 30 seconds each.
Then two beakers for one minute each and the last bath for 2 minutes, followed by the wetting agent.
If the water is completely replaced, a total rinsing time of 5 minutes is sufficient; for highly sensitive films such as TMZ or Delta 3200, I would rinse for up to 10 minutes.
All this should be done with moderate agitation.
Roman
The Ilford method is the answer!
Stagirit
Wolfgg
Any dirt particles on the film after rinsing should be washed away by running the film directly under the water jet once more before the wetting agent bath. And whatever you do, don’t use those silly stripping tongs as described above for Ilford; prepare the wetting agent bath with distilled water and stick strictly to the dilution ratio, bathe the film, hang it up, and you’re done.
