I have always thought of Kodak Photo Flo as the kiss of death in a darkroom so I use no water additives.
My tap water is filtered (hot and cold). My faucets have vinyl hoses attached. After a 20 min. wash, and with the film is still on a SS reel, I spray water through the spirals for a few seconds to dislodge any contaminates then I clip the top of the roll and put a weighed clip on the bottom. With the film hanging on a wire adjacent to my film cabinet, I take two 12 by 12 inch pieces of artificial chamois skin cloths (Pep Boys) that have been well soaked and wrung almost dry. The cloths are folded and rolled into glove sized pads.
I place a pad on each side of the hanging film and slowly run the pads down each side of the film keeping the film evenly pressed between the two pads. The top clips must be the type with teeth that punch through the film. Only one time down . There are no drops of water left on the film. Even the sprocket holes in 35mm film are free of water. I then place the hanging film in the drying cabinet for overnight drying.
I usually do four rolls at a time rotating the fake chamois skin pads so a fresh and dryer portion of the pad starts the next roll. Then I wash and wring out the pads for the next batch of washed film or for storage. These cloths are stored wet in a small Tupper Ware type enclosure. If you drop a pad on the floor you must then discard it and cut a new one.
I have never had any scratches in 25 years of wiping down my 120 and 35mm film in this manner.
BTW my metal cabinet is a converted metal wardrobe cabinet 18"x18" x 78" tall which is tall enough to hang a 36 exposure roll with clip on top and a weighted clip on bottom. The cabinet will hold about 20 35mm rolls. Once all my rolls are in the cabinet I don't open the door until next day.
Walter Holt
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On Tuesday, March 2, 2004, at 10:49 AM, Doug Seibert wrote:
Yeah Greg.......you've got the right idea.......depends on the water quality.........hard/soft/minerals/grit.............<image.tiff>
I'm a PhotoFlo'man but if you're skimpy on the wetting agent ....depending on YOUR water conditions........the "water" just runs to the center of the negs and drys there........If you get the rate right it "sheets" off the film...............
How are you drying them ? (those look like "bits" in there)
I think you need to INCREASE the amount of the wetting agent slightly......
Use even/clean "finger" squeege..........Dry in a clean envron...........(I like a heated drying)...............
Gregory Fraser <Gregory.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I seem to be having a problem with film washing as evident by the line of crap running horizontally across the image through Barbie's left eye shown here http://users.imag.net/~lon2251/temp/barbie.jpg.
I washed the film with tap water. Then with the film still in the developing tank, I filled the tank with distilled water and two drops of LFN that I purchased a week ago. I agitated it in there for about twenty seconds then hung the film and squeegeed it with my wet fingers. Obviously I've done something wrong. Can anyone help me clear this up?
Thanks, Greg
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