near freezing cold water wash?

[Macpod]

the water tap around here are around 7c degrees. I have been bringing up my developer and fixer to 20c but have neglected to do the same for my wash cycle.

I use a modified ilford wash method, instead of inversions i plunge the reel in and out of the tank. I use an AP tank.

Is the extreme cold temperature a problem or should i be worried?



PS is the plunging washing technique often used or is that a big nono?

 

[Macpod]

Bump....any thoughts?

 

[Sparrow]

reticulation on the emulsion surface is supposed to be a problem, but when I tried to induce it (id11/hp5+ at 21deg) by using an iced-water wash I got nothing

 

[MartinP]

If you use the Ilford method of washing then you only need a jug of water at 20C, containing three or four times the capacity of the tank. This is easy to organise I'm sure.

The fixer by-products go into the water because they are at a relatively lower concentration there, by diffusion in other words. So a few moments (only a few seconds) between each inversion is useful after the first refill, because the fixer by-products concentration in the film is already much lower by that time.

Very cold water will result in a much slower diffusion of the stuff you are trying to get rid of, and dunking the reels would likely also be less effective than a proper inversion. If the water is reeeeeally cold you could also reticulate (distort or crack) the emulsion, but that depends on the sort of film you are using as most new-ish, thin emulsion, films are pretty resistant to temperature changes.

Ilford, and probably Kodak, have excellent how-to articles on their websites plus you could also have a look at Roger Hicks site too.

 

[sevo]

Plunging or inversions seem to be rather irrelevant - washing is not developing or fixing, where the small amount of chemistry entering the gelatin gets depleted or saturated, and are influenced by surface pH levels. And it needs no even action across time either - as long as the specs are met at the end it does not matter whether the centre washes twice as fast as the perforation margins. The amount of chemistry in the emulsion is tiny compared to the amount of water, and the little bit of hypo and silver eventually dissipates on its own in the water - even if there are local pH effects to start with, after a few water changes concentrations will be down to a level where movement can't distribute it any better.

Ages ago, one German chem vendor (I suppose Agfa) published a water-conserving wash cycle, and the proposed process, with precisely timed (double clearing) fix in good speed fixer, rinse, hypo clearer, rinse and a mere five three-minute stand and replace cycles proved good enough to bring films to archival standard. I have done roughly so (bumping it up to seven cycles as a safeguard for faster, thick emulsion film) ever since, for more than twenty years, with no faded negatives - while some of my earlier negatives, with sloppy 5min fixing in uncontrolled fixer and 15min running water wash, have turned yellow or spotty.

Given that you can get away with very small amounts of water, warming it up to 20°C should be feasible.

Sevo

 

[sevo]

If you use the Ilford method of washing then you only need a jug of water at 20C, containing three or four times the capacity of the tank.

Ah, so that has been bumped down to even less water in the last two decades...

Sevo

 

[MartinP]

Ah, so that has been bumped down to even less water in the last two decades...

Well, the Ilford method has been around for a while too and I have negatives that are still fine after more than thirty years, but note that Ilford specifies this method only with non-hardening fixer and the temperature of the water needs to be at about the same level as the rest of the processing.

Additionally, there is not much point in using hypo-clear with normal film (as opposed to fibre-based paper, for example) and it is indeed not required for the Ilford method.

 

[Macpod]

thanks guys, just wanted to know if the temperature was a major problem. I will keep a bottle of water in a jug next to the heater in the future.

Just read Roger&france's site. the diagonal drying technique seems to be worth a try.

 

[Ronald M]

It is not a problem if you do not induce retriculation. When you do the first time, you will then be sorry because it is not revsible.

 

[sepiareverb]

Reticulation can be pretty difficult to get with modern films, especially with a hardening fixer. I had a student see some reticulated images from the sixties and want to duplicate that look, he finally succeeded by using non-hardening fixer, a hot sodium carbonate (?) bath followed by ice water. On HP5 or Tri-X as I recall. It wasn't easy nor anywhere near as dramatic as times I had the hot water run out while running films in the early eighties using normal chemistry and wash times on Tri-X and Plus-X.

 

[Macpod]

what does reticulation look like?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Reticulation can be pretty difficult to get with modern films, especially with a hardening fixer. I had a student see some reticulated images from the sixties and want to duplicate that look, he finally succeeded by using non-hardening fixer, a hot sodium carbonate (?) bath followed by ice water. On HP5 or Tri-X as I recall. It wasn't easy nor anywhere near as dramatic as times I had the hot water run out while running films in the early eighties using normal chemistry and wash times on Tri-X and Plus-X.

Probably Tri-X in the last incarnation before the present one: it was the last film from a major manufacturer that occasionally reticulated even if you weren't trying for the effect. As far as I can guess, the ciurrent version is hardened earlier in production.

@Macpod: reticulation looks like VERY coarse grain, or a bit like wrinkle-finish paint.

With your 'plunge' technoque, I'd be inclined to move the film rapidly up and down for 2-3 seconds on each 'plunge'. With really cold water, washing takes about twice as long, so move it up and down for maybe 5 seconds on each 'plunge', i.e. plunge 1 (up-down-up-down-up-down), plunge 2 (up-down-up-down-up-down), and so on to plunge 5; then the same with fresh water 1-10; then the same with fresh water 1-20. Given that you need only 3 tanks full of water (under 1.5 litres with my stainless tanks, a bit more with your APs), it is probably worth the minimal effort and expense to work within 3-5 degrees of dev/fix temperature . I normally do a 4th wash, 20 inversions, in de-ionized water (I live in a very hard water area).

And yes, diagonal drying is unreasonably quick and effective.

Cheers,

R.

 

[le vrai rdu]

the water tap around here are around 7c degrees. I have been bringing up my developer and fixer to 20c but have neglected to do the same for my wash cycle.

I use a modified ilford wash method, instead of inversions i plunge the reel in and out of the tank. I use an AP tank.

Is the extreme cold temperature a problem or should i be worried?



PS is the plunging washing technique often used or is that a big nono?

low temperature = slow chemical transformation speed

you should heat the water, that would prevent T° differential between baths wich can damage the film/paper