I am preparing to develop my first roll of slides soon. My (hopefully last) doubts are about the final rinse.
Two words as a preamble:
My setup is: Jobo CPP-2, Jobo 1510 or 1520) drum, Jobo plastic reels, slide film.
My chemistry is the Chimifoto Ornano E-6 kit.
The stabilizer of this kit, "I 96", is labelled as "Aldeide formica 4,75%, PH 3-6".
100ml is the quantity for 5 litres (to be diluted 1+49).
I understand this contains formalin (or some cousin of it) and that I must not breath if, swallow, or inject it in my veins, and the such (I will use gloves, glasses etc.).
It seems to me that there is nothing else in the final bath, no antistatic agent, no wetting agent.
I plan to mix this final bath in demineralised water.
I will dry my film with a film drying unit (Jobo Mistral 2) at the highest temperature (which I understand is the right setting for drying slide film).
I read a bit everywhere that people are not content with a final bath that only contains formalin. There are two substances that people usually add: a "wetting agent" such as Kodak Photo-flo, and an "antistatic" agent, such as Ilford Ilfotol. Sometimes a certain product contains one, two, or three of those agents (preservative, antistatic, anti-drying marks).
I come to the questions.
COMPOSITION
Considering that I am using demineralized water in the final rinse, and a drying unit, is it adviceable that for best results I look for some addition (antistatic, photo-flo) or should I just go with formalin only?
If your answer is that I should use some sort of wetting agent, and/or antistatic agent, can I mix them to my formalin bath without risks? (people should not mix chemicals without checking first, they say).
Why are there in the market final baths that contain only some of those 3 agents? Shouldn't there be the three of them in any product? Are there adverse side-effects of some substance, so that some people prefer avoiding wetting agents, or antistatic agents? (why is my Ornano final bath missing an antistatic agent and a wetting agent? Is there a reason?).
METHOD OF WASHING
I read somewhere that the final bath should not come in contact with reels, being hard to clean away and having adverse side-effects on the other baths. I don't know if this problem is caused by the formalin, or the wetting agent, or something else. In any case I thought to brace the advice to just open the reels and let the film fall inside the container with the final bath. I tried to do this in my "water-only" experiments. The film tends to open like a compressed spring and the "spires" of the film touch each other. I have to take some sort of pincers and divaricate the film to ensure that all of it is well bathed. This manipulation might scratch the film, cause splashes of diluted formalin, and generally speaking I don't like the procedure.
Much, much easier would be to just put the entire reel, with film, on the final bath. The final bath would easily and surely come in contact with the entire lenght of the film with a little agitation of the reel inside the bath. I could use a small container with a lid, using less liquid, and I could put the lid and agitate a bit. This would be clean, effective, and "greener".
If I do this, how should I wash my reel so that I am absolutely sure I have eliminated any residue of final bath? What kind of soap, or other detergent? Should I use sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) or some other devil's substance?
Or should I just avoid putting my reels in the final bath?
Thanks for your help
Fabrizio
Two words as a preamble:
My setup is: Jobo CPP-2, Jobo 1510 or 1520) drum, Jobo plastic reels, slide film.
My chemistry is the Chimifoto Ornano E-6 kit.
The stabilizer of this kit, "I 96", is labelled as "Aldeide formica 4,75%, PH 3-6".
100ml is the quantity for 5 litres (to be diluted 1+49).
I understand this contains formalin (or some cousin of it) and that I must not breath if, swallow, or inject it in my veins, and the such (I will use gloves, glasses etc.).
It seems to me that there is nothing else in the final bath, no antistatic agent, no wetting agent.
I plan to mix this final bath in demineralised water.
I will dry my film with a film drying unit (Jobo Mistral 2) at the highest temperature (which I understand is the right setting for drying slide film).
I read a bit everywhere that people are not content with a final bath that only contains formalin. There are two substances that people usually add: a "wetting agent" such as Kodak Photo-flo, and an "antistatic" agent, such as Ilford Ilfotol. Sometimes a certain product contains one, two, or three of those agents (preservative, antistatic, anti-drying marks).
I come to the questions.
COMPOSITION
Considering that I am using demineralized water in the final rinse, and a drying unit, is it adviceable that for best results I look for some addition (antistatic, photo-flo) or should I just go with formalin only?
If your answer is that I should use some sort of wetting agent, and/or antistatic agent, can I mix them to my formalin bath without risks? (people should not mix chemicals without checking first, they say).
Why are there in the market final baths that contain only some of those 3 agents? Shouldn't there be the three of them in any product? Are there adverse side-effects of some substance, so that some people prefer avoiding wetting agents, or antistatic agents? (why is my Ornano final bath missing an antistatic agent and a wetting agent? Is there a reason?).
METHOD OF WASHING
I read somewhere that the final bath should not come in contact with reels, being hard to clean away and having adverse side-effects on the other baths. I don't know if this problem is caused by the formalin, or the wetting agent, or something else. In any case I thought to brace the advice to just open the reels and let the film fall inside the container with the final bath. I tried to do this in my "water-only" experiments. The film tends to open like a compressed spring and the "spires" of the film touch each other. I have to take some sort of pincers and divaricate the film to ensure that all of it is well bathed. This manipulation might scratch the film, cause splashes of diluted formalin, and generally speaking I don't like the procedure.
Much, much easier would be to just put the entire reel, with film, on the final bath. The final bath would easily and surely come in contact with the entire lenght of the film with a little agitation of the reel inside the bath. I could use a small container with a lid, using less liquid, and I could put the lid and agitate a bit. This would be clean, effective, and "greener".
If I do this, how should I wash my reel so that I am absolutely sure I have eliminated any residue of final bath? What kind of soap, or other detergent? Should I use sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) or some other devil's substance?
Or should I just avoid putting my reels in the final bath?
Thanks for your help
Fabrizio