schorsch27 wrote:
Dear friends of the darkroom,
For years I have been searching in vain for a good solution for drying negatives without leaving dust or streaks.
After a long break from the darkroom, I would like to enlarge my black-and-white jazz portraits from the 80s to really good quality. To do this, I want to clean the old negatives again, as they already show the odd bit of lint or water mark. After cleaning, I’d like to mount them in new vellum sleeves, but first I’m faced with the old problem of not yet having found the ideal way to dry them.
Unlike in the past, I now use slightly warmed distilled water for rinsing (our tap water is very hard), to which I add a splash of Ilfotol or Mirasol. As I have not had good experiences with film scrapers (fine scratches that only become visible during enlargements), I wipe the film between my fingers up to the point where my fingers no longer glide smoothly.
As the 6-exposure strips, unlike a full roll of film, offer hardly anywhere to grip, I hold the negatives by the perforation edge with a clean pair of flat-nose pliers whilst stripping them. I then hang them on a wooden strip covered with clothes pegs in the shower for a few hours.
The result is sobering: the lint is gone, but the streaks remain – despite the distilled water.
Do you have any ideas on how I can tackle the streaking problem without first having to buy a fancy drying machine?
Stay well, Markus
Yes, the wild eighties. Removing the stains requires a bit of experimentation. Pure wetting agent residues should dissolve if soaked for a longer period in demineralised water, possibly at a slightly higher temperature. If necessary, gently rub the area while damp using a microfibre cloth. If you prepared your wetting agent bath using hard tap water at the time, it is likely a mixture of limescale and wetting agent. As limescale does not dissolve easily, I would recommend a solution of diluted acetic acid in this case. The same applies, of course, to pure limescale stains.
You can make scratches on the backing side (where the drying marks are usually found) invisible to the naked eye by applying a small (!) amount of Vaseline. Work it in/wipe it off with a soft, lint-free cloth (e.g. a medical wound compress) until the Vaseline merely fills the indentation of the scratch. Clean the negative with film cleaner (available from Tetenal, for example) before repackaging.
