Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have processed -
my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative. I did
read somewhere that you could wipe them with coffee filters as they are lint
free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and then warm
heat from a hairdrier?

FireBall

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

don't wipe film at all!! Make the last step in processing a 30 second bath
in distilled water with a couple of drops (literally) of Photo-Flo (wetting
agent) and then hang the film to dry in a dust free closet or bathroom
overnight. The use of distilled water & Photo-Flo should prevent hard water
stains. I never touch wet film - the emulsion is soft and very easily
damaged.

"Fire Ball" wrote in message
...
After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have
processed -
my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative. I
did
read somewhere that you could wipe them with coffee filters as they are
lint
free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and then
warm
heat from a hairdrier?

FireBall

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

I too would suggest forgetting the squeegee........I have been using my two
fingers as a squeegee after the 30-minute Photo-Flo process described by
Pieter Litchfield. I also would agree that the emulsion is very easily
damaged at this point and I would rather not wipe the film at all. I think I
will follow Pieter's suggestion and try the distilled water with Photo-Flow
and forget wiping the film altogether. That's a great suggestion worth it's
weight in aspirin.

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

Fire Ball wrote:

After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have processed -
my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative. I did
read somewhere that you could wipe them with coffee filters as they are lint
free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and then warm
heat from a hairdrier?

FireBall

I dry my negatives by giving a final rinse in filtered water with
PhotoFlo (at about half or less the concentration Kodak recommends on
the bottle), then quickly hanging them vertically to dry with a weight
on the bottom of the strip. The only negatives I've scratched recently
were ones where, for one reason or another, I deviated from that method
(usually because I didn't get quite enough PhotoFlo and I could see
water beading instead of sheeting off, and tried to squeegee, or
scratched the negatives in rewashing them).

I use about 5-6 drops of PhotoFlo in 240 ml of water in a 35 mm tank,
more for larger tanks, and it works very well. Now if I only had a
dust-free location to dry in...

--
I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz!
-- E. J. Fudd, 1954

Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer
Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm
Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm

Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

"Fire Ball" schrieb:

After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have processed -
my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative.

At the moment I use distilled water with a detergent in half the
recommended strenght (Tetenal Mirasol) as the final step of my washing
procedure ("Ilford scheme") and run the wet film once through my index
finger and thumb. No residue, no scratches.

Using the recommended Mirasol/Agepon/Photoflo strength usually results
in a residue.

Others are using a centrifugue salad drier (I have one bought
specifically for this task ;-).

http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/...de/L5/L595.htm

Attach the film with the spool on one side (vertically!) and a second
loaded or empty one on the other side, close the lid and pull the
trigger.

It works, the film comes out "pre dried", without any water left on
the surface and it will dry out completely within the hour.

free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and then warm
heat from a hairdrier?

Forget it. Thus you will throw and bake dust in the emulsion.

FireBall

Gruss, Roman
--
"A man should always keep two things in mind:
one is that he is a fool; the other is that he is going to die."
(Gurdijew)

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

dont wipe the film.

dry them after photoflo and wipe them with an anti-static cloth
should you find a dirty neg.


k

"Fire Ball" wrote in message
...
After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have
processed -
my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative. I
did
read somewhere that you could wipe them with coffee filters as they are
lint
free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and then
warm
heat from a hairdrier?

FireBall

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

On 5/9/2004 1:47 AM Fire Ball spake thus:

After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have processed
- my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative. I
did read somewhere that you could wipe them with coffee filters as they are
lint free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and
then warm heat from a hairdrier?

I'll second the emotion expressed by consensus he don't wipe the film with
*anything* (including your fingers). It's completely unnecessary to do so.

Use Photo-Flo (or equivalent) at half the recommended dilution (Kodak says
1:200; I use 1:400 or less.)

If you see a bead or two of water on the negatives as they're drying, don't
panic, and *don't wipe them*! Just take a small piece of toilet paper or
equivalent and dab the bead with the corner of the paper: it'll suck the water
right off the film. And as has been pointed out, you can easily remove the one
or two water marks remaining with film cleaner afterwards if needed. (I
generally get *no* watermarks whatsoever, and I just use regular tap water.)


--
I was quickly apprised that an "RSS feed" was not, as I had naively
imagined, some new and unspeakable form of sexual debauchery practised
by young persons of dubious morality, but a way of providing news
articles to the cybernetic publishing moguls of the World Wide Wait so
they can fill the airwaves with even more useless drivel.

- Cynical shop talk from comp.publish.prepress

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

I weight the strip of negatives and hang them in a garment bag. I suspend the
bag from the shower screen pole and zip it closed. A couple of hours later
they are dry.

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

"Fire Ball" wrote in message
...
After successfully managing to scratch the last two films I have
processed -
my by the squeegee!! - I am in desparate need for a cheap alternative. I
did
read somewhere that you could wipe them with coffee filters as they are
lint
free and designed & made not to drop fibres. Anyone tried this and then
warm
heat from a hairdrier?

FireBall

My method is identical to Pieter except that I end it by putting the film in
a home-made drying cabinet, the film dries in half an hour:
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/fdryer.htm

--
Claudio Bonavolta
http://www.bonavolta.ch

Help!!! Anyone got any film drying tips?
 

"Claudio Bonavolta" wrote in message
...
My method is identical to Pieter except that I end it by putting the film
in
a home-made drying cabinet, the film dries in half an hour:
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/fdryer.htm

Very nicely done. I would probably add a cage or screen around the fan to
keep the errant clip or film strip from mangling or getting mangled. Maybe
needs a thermal fail-safe for the heating elements, too. Not to protect the
film, but the cabinet, in case of insufficient air flow.

I don't understand the exhorbitant prices for the store-bought "garment bag"
dryers.