Cleaning dried negatives

[Romanko]

I use a shower cabin to dry my film (since I thoroughly clean the bathroom beforehand my family has no objections). Run hot water in the cabin for a minute to create some steam which removes dust from the air. A piece of aluminium angle and cloth pegs are used to hang the film and keep it straight while drying. I have no problem with dust. Residue (drying marks) could be caused by hard water used for the final rinse. I use distilled water with Photo-Flo.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Koraks - fortunately, my darkrooms are in a different building from the main house. But we have outdoor cats too, which make a regular game out of being naughty and trying sneak into places they aren't supposed to. I have to keep the door closed at all times, which can be tricky if I'm trying to carry a stack of mounted prints from there to the flat files in the main house, or similar tasks which require a temporarily open door.

The more important issue is to thoroughly clean or change my clothes before entering the inner sanctum of film work or one of the enlarger stations. Frequent space cleaning is also vital. But we do love our cats, and one of them has been sitting on my lap while typing this.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Vacuum with what? An ordinary vacuum cleaner spreads fine dust. I myself went through that initiation ritual. My first enlarger was set up in a carpeted bedroom, with processing in the adjacent bathroom. Where there's a will, there's a way. But once I was able to build a real darkroom space, even the wall paint was chosen for its anti-static properties. I began wearing a 100% dacron cleanroom smock for fussy film tasks, got an industrial quality air cleaner, triple-filtered compressor air, etc. And most important, had to teach my ever-curious cats where their boundaries lie... well, they ended up teaching me that I have to lock the door every single time, or they will come in. Ever look at cat hair under the microscope? Each little segment has barbs to it; no wonder it clings to things and makes noses itch! Darkroom public enemy no.1.

I use the home built in vacuum , the power unit is a long way from the hose pick up.
My home heating is not forced air so I have no recirculating air in the home.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh, that's a nice convenience. I use a portable real deal Hepa vac (two-stage EPA certified). It can also be used remotely via ducting from a different room.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

I only use what works for me.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

Alright folks, finally I have managed to build a cupboard to the specification I need, made it really airtight when the door is closed with 3 hooks so the door is well closed. Developed 7 rolls of films, no visible dust at all.

Now the times comes to clean old negatives. I am going to prepare Kodak Rewash formula PB-6 as described on the ECN-2 spec manual. It has Sodium Sulphite (anhydrous) which I have and Sodium Bisulphite (anhydrous) which I do not have. For some reason, that bisulphite is not available to purchase in UK at all in reasonable quantities. However there is plent metabisulphite and some says it can be used as well.

Do you have any idea if I can substitute Sodium Bisulphite with Metabisulphite?

 

[koraks]

Do you have any idea if I can substitute Sodium Bisulphite with Metabisulphite?

This is an oft-occurring confusion; the simple & short answer is that metabisulfite is bisulfite.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

This is an oft-occurring confusion; the simple & short answer is that metabisulfite is bisulfite.

Why they couldn’t make the life of simple people like me easier

Thank you @koraks

 

[oxcanary]

Cats and darkroom - Argh! I once let one of ours in from the garden. He gleefully ran past me, saw the darkroom door open, lept like a salmon through the door at a height of three feet landing squarely in my tray of fixer! He sat there looking pleased with himself until I had to hoik him out and run paws and underside under the tap for half an hour. He was called Isis and was amusingly daft!

 

[MattKing]

Cats and darkroom - Argh! I once let one of ours in from the garden. He gleefully ran past me, saw the darkroom door open, lept like a salmon through the door at a height of three feet landing squarely in my tray of fixer! He sat there looking pleased with himself until I had to hoik him out and run paws and underside under the tap for half an hour. He was called Isis and was amusingly daft!

@oxcanary ,
I don't think this is what is meant when people refer to having their cats "fixed".

 

[Brendan Quirk]

I guess I have been lucky - my darkroom has been in the old basement coal room, as far from living space as possible. You couldn't get the cats to go down there for anything!

 

[Truzi]

@oxcanary ,
I don't think this is what is meant when people refer to having their cats "fixed".

LOL.

Our last vet chuckled when I talked about having them "broke." I wouldn't exactly call it "fixed."

So, will the smell of the chemicals keep the cats away (apparently fixer won't, lol). Some of our cats do like to hang out around me, so I've not developed film in a while.

It shouldn't be too much of a problem except for drying, but there is a storage room they are forbidden from, so that might be my only hope. I usually let film dry by hanging it from the shower curtain rod.

 

[Tim Stapp]

@oxcanary ,
I don't think this is what is meant when people refer to having their cats "fixed".

Having five female indoor cats, I find this statement hilarious. My darkroom is locked closed, cats are forboten.

 

[jmoche]

Thank you so much for your replies, much appreciated.

As I cannot solve the problem of limiting the airflow in the basement, my plan is to invest on a film dryer. As my basement is not high, the classic Marrutt cabinets are not an option however I’ve seen more like table top solutions like Marrutt RF35. I believe one dries the films in these, when the film is still on the reel instead of hanging them.

Is that a good solution at all? I shoot 35/120 and 4x5.

Otherwise, I’ll buy couple of MDF sheets and build a drying cabinet, with a simple lamp inside to heat and an extraction fan below to extract any air and intake from the top.

I built a dryer from a some 4" PVC fittings, a fan designed to fit into a computer, and a round Hepa filter that fits into one end of the pipe. Basically, the fan sucks air into the pipe which has to go through the Hepa filter first. The film stays on the reel and sits inside of the PVC pipe. I will say that my dust problems vanished--100% gone. However, drying your film while it is still on the reels will result in extremely curled film that will need to sit for days under something heavy. Even then, it will still have some curl to it but not so much that it prevents using the negs on a scanner or enlarger.