Rewashing film

Ted Striker

Ted Striker

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I have some freshly developed negatives that look like they have some kind of dirt on them. It must have come from dust when they were drying. I want to try to save some of them by re-washing them, but have never done this before.

How would you rewash negatives that have dirt on them?

Thank you.
 
Dunk them in a photo flo solution, let them soak a while, pull them out and gently squeegee (if you are part of the squeegee camp) or simply let them dry. If there is dirt in the emulsion itself, you're going to have to use some sort of mechanical force to get the dirt out, it won't simply fall off like dust usually does in a rewash. Make sure you dry them in a good warm, humid place that is dust free as well.

Phil Forrest
 
Phil_F_NM said:
Dunk them in a photo flo solution, let them soak a while, pull them out and gently squeegee (if you are part of the squeegee camp) or simply let them dry. If there is dirt in the emulsion itself, you're going to have to use some sort of mechanical force to get the dirt out, it won't simply fall off like dust usually does in a rewash. Make sure you dry them in a good warm, humid place that is dust free as well.

Phil Forrest
Click to expand...

Thank you. I'll try, but I have no idea where a dust free environment is.
 
Ted Striker said:
Thank you. I'll try, but I have no idea where a dust free environment is.
Click to expand...

You can also make a forced air dryer. I used to have one that served in the newsroom of the Philadelphia Inquirer and it worked fantastically. I was drying 8 steel reels at a time and it took about 25 minutes.
You basically get a PVC pipe a little wider diameter than your reels, stick a hair dryer on one end and blow the water off. Don't use too much heat. Filter the air coming in to the dryer. The pipe containing the reels should be vertical and the blow dryer should not be directly in line with water dripping down. Good luck.

Phil Forrest
 
Also try about 100ml of 90 percent alcohol in a liter of distilled water with one drop of LFN. That speeds the drying process considerably.
 
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