Tri X in 135 drying flat ???

mfogiel

mfogiel

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A friend has just told me, he has shot some Tri X in 135 format recently, and he swears the film dries completely flat, without the infamous bowing in the middle, which made it so difficult to scan so far for me. He showed me the box, and it had the number 1931 on it and expiry date 07/2018. Can any of you , who has shot Tri X in this format recently confirm his findings? If it were true, it might not fully compensate for Brexit, but it would certainly be a major positive news this year...
 
Hi Marek,
I also shoot Tri-X-wash it with warm water and it dries flat. I wshed it once with cold water and it still curlls...
I have batch nr. 1911-exp. date is 11/2017
 
Flat?

Flat?

Hi Marek,

How flat do you mean? Dead flat, not mine. Slight hump, but still reasonable? Yep, mine is like that. Its the "newer" Tri-X from Freestyle a few months ago (not the older all original stuff).

I know what you mean about not flat, it is a curse, but of late the Delta, the FP4+, the Foma, and Tri-X, plus T-Max 100 have all dried reasonably flat for me.

Gary
 
Dead flat, no way! Hang it with some weight at the lower end and it always stays flat.
The only time I had curly trix was with pre-80s expired rolls that were left in their canisters for decades.
 
There's basically 2 types of film substrate - Triacetate and Polyester.
my experience is that polyester is flatter after drying ( regariding the curl to across a frame, not the lengthwise curl along the film strip)

I also read in petapixel that Kodak was shutting down it's Triacetate production in 2013, and would source film stock for outside the company - not sure if this happened or not, but it might explain subtle differences in recent vs classic rolls

http://petapixel.com/2013/06/12/kodak-axes-acetate-film-base-production/

Tri-X is on Triacetate stock
 
film from commercial processing machines has little to no curl. The machine dries it with air, warm, I do not know but that makes sense.

Someone says warm water works, cold does not. Change up temp from 68 slowly so as not to reticulate emulsion.

Hang to dry weighted, then roll emulsion out 4 " dia circle and keep it 1 day. Put into sleeves and weight. This worked for me.

Plain old time also works. Probably because moisture content equalizes over time.

It must curl because there is a drying differential between sides. BTW, sheet film never curls.
 
I don't know what I'm doing right, but Tri-X has never curled for me. I process in a Jobo ATL-1000 and hang in a heated dryer using forced air and low heat. I usually scan the uncut roll immediately on a Pakon and then cut and sleeve.

I understand that the curl drives some people nuts, but it is hard to understand why it affects some and not others under seemingly similar conditions.

Rolfe
 
Tri-X dries dead flat here in Japan in summer when we have high humidity. It curls like hell in winter, when the air is dry.
 
rolfe said:
I don't know what I'm doing right...
Click to expand...

I do!
rolfe said:
I process in a Jobo ATL-1000 and hang in a heated dryer using forced air and low heat.
Click to expand...

When we say Kodak 135 film curls, we (or is it just me?) mean that it curls when processed and dried in a traditional "do it at home" way. And that some other films (like Ilford) do not curl with that kind of treatment.

We've all (or was it just me?) got perfectly flat Kodak film back from labs...
 
maddoc said:
Tri-X dries dead flat here in Japan in summer when we have high humidity. It curls like hell in winter, when the air is dry.
Click to expand...

This. The rate at which it dries also affects the curl. I've noticed a similar effect with fiber print paper.

~Joe
 
Just did three rolls last night. Final one minute in a liter of distilled water, two drops of LFN, and 100 mil. of 91 percent isopropyl alcohol. Hang overnight in a JOBO dryer, weighted clip at the bottom, no heat, no fan. All three rolls perfectly flat and no water marks. Just scanned four of the shots. No problems. Also prints well in a wet darkroom - that will be later today. If you dry it with heat, you may get some curl. Darkroom temperature ranges from 68º f to 72º f.
 
maddoc said:
Tri-X dries dead flat here in Japan in summer when we have high humidity. It curls like hell in winter, when the air is dry.
Click to expand...

JoeV said:
This. The rate at which it dries also affects the curl. I've noticed a similar effect with fiber print paper.

~Joe
Click to expand...

x3. high humidity, warm. The film dries slower but much less curl. Last roll I did I could scan in a regular holder with no glass.
 
I live in a dry climate so I get the vertical curl. Sometimes, I let the cut strips lay weighted in sleeves and the curl is improved after a couple of weeks.
 
I have just started developing the rolls from my brief holiday. I shot some of the "old" Tri X, which I bought about a year ago along some of the "new" batch (1931). I've developed them together, and it is clear that the new Tri X stock is drying FLAT ! at least as flat as Ilford films, which is excellent. If someone can tell me how to upload here a picture from my Iphone, I can show you what I mean.
Here it is:
trix by marek fogiel, on Flickr
 
Still using the method I described in June and the film is still drying perfectly flat, just as it has for years. The only time I've had problems with curl is when I used the Jobo dryer's heat setting.
 
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