Back-to-back sheet film processing with hangers and tanks

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 8, 2006

So I came back this summer with around 150 sheets of 4x5" to process and made a first dent in it yesterday doing 32 sheets. First bottleneck: drying space. I'll get more of those expensive Jobo clips, and that will take care of that, but I'm thinking of how to increase the efficiency of this process when I have a large volume of sheets to process without having to get 8x10" tanks that I don't have space for.

When I have a lot of 4x5" or 5x7" to process, I usually use hangers and 5x7" tanks. I've got 16 4x5" hangers, so I run 8 hangers at a time, wash two batches at once, remove the sheets and treat with Sistan in a tray, hang up the sheets, dry off the hangers with paper towels, and run another 16 sheets.

I've read about people developing film back-to-back with tanks and hangers, and I sometimes process prints that way in trays. Has anyone here actually done this? Do the anti-halation and sensitizing dyes clear properly this way? Is it archivally acceptible to wash film this way? Of course I can test it myself with a couple of sheets, but I thought I'd ask if anyone has any real world experience with this first.

Roger Hicks · Sep 8, 2006

The one time I tried it, they stuck and the backing didn't clear properly, but that was many years ago. It was hassle enough I've never felt the need to try again -- but then, I've never had 150 sheets to develop...

Have fun!

Cheers,

Roger

butterflydream · Sep 8, 2006

I tried it once with 120 roll film. Like Roger they stuck and anti-halation remained. I put them into fixer again (each separated) then they became clear. I never did it again.

raucousimages · Sep 8, 2006

Back to Back does not work well. It is faster to just do one at a time after you calculate the time to seperate the negs and tray wash to clear the backs and you could still have rings from uneven clearing.

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 8, 2006

Thanks, that sounds like a pretty definite "no."

gbenaim · Sep 8, 2006

David,

For drying, I've found a little clothes carousel my wife had works great and takes up little space. It's the kind of thing women use to dry socks and stuff, it's a plastic ring about 1.5 ft w clotespins hanging from it. Advantage over clothesline is much smaller footprint, if you have limited space.

wildbill · Sep 8, 2006

For drying i've always used small "binder clips" from Staples. You string them up and you can dry dozens of sheets about 1 inch apart in a small area. The nice feature is that the clips can be placed on the rebate area of the film w/o damaging the image area.

Dave Wooten · Sep 8, 2006

Tropical Hazard

Well Well, I wish I had the problem of developing 150 or so 4 x 5 negs...the product of a summer basking in the island breezes with a loved one and writing .

rbarker · Sep 8, 2006

I'm a fan of binder clips for drying, too. I made individual little hangers for them from clothes-hanger wire, so they can be hung from a tension-hold curtain rod(s) (one, or multiples, stacked) in the bath, er, uh, I mean darkroom.

For greater efficiency, you might consider running multiple developing tanks, with insertion spaced to fit the stop/fix/into-wash sequence. Multiple timers with different "voices" would be handy. Of course, any confusion would be a disaster.

Jim Noel · Sep 8, 2006

Many dentists are moving from film x-rays to digital. The clips used to hold those small dental x-ray films are the best I have ever seen for film. They punch a minute hole in the corner, at least as small as a dressmaker's pin, and hold very securely.
Check with your dentist to see if he is conveting.

Jim

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 8, 2006

Jim Noel said:
Many dentists are moving from film x-rays to digital. The clips used to hold those small dental x-ray films are the best I have ever seen for film. They punch a minute hole in the corner, at least as small as a dressmaker's pin, and hold very securely.
Check with your dentist to see if he is conveting.

Jim

Thanks for the suggestion. That's just what the Jobo clips are like (now about $55 for a package of 10!). Still I just went down to B&H and bought ten more clips. I've got thirty of them, and every few months I seem to buy ten more. They really are the perfect solution for any size sheet film.

Multiple developing tanks are an idea, but if I had room for them in the bathtub...er...darkroom sink, I could just move up to 3.5 gallon tanks and 4-up hangers. I store the tanks in a closet when I'm not processing, and having to drag out the 3.5 gallon tanks would be something of a disincentive to processing film. I could probably do one more developer tank, though, and that would save some time when I've got a long development time.

genecrumpler · Sep 18, 2006

I tried developing two sheets of film back to back. I ruined both negatives.
Fortunately all they were was lens resolutions tests, so I reached my goal of finding lp/mm, but would have in a big hurt if I tried to make a print.

Have you thought about spring clothes pins? Lot cheaper, unless you are sure you can use all the metal clips on a regular basis.

Earl Dunbar · Sep 18, 2006

I agree with Roger and others. At least in a Yankee daylight tank (yeah, I know), it didn't work well. But also in tray processing it was a no-go.

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 18, 2006

I have lots of spring clothes pins. Unless you modify them, they hang the sheets parallel to the line, so they take up much more space, and occasionally larger sheets will drop out of the clip. The Jobo clips pierce the sheet with a pin, so they hold any size sheet securely, and they position the sheet perpendicular to the line, so you can hang more sheets in less space. I seem to be shooting more sheet film than rollfilm lately, so they've been worth it.

Back-to-back sheet film processing with hangers and tanks

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