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Back up and running!

JRoosa

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Messages
112
Location
Colorado, US
Format
35mm
After about a 10 year hiatus, I again have a functional darkroom. Woo hoo!

I distinctly remember disliking film grain decades ago, but now I really like the look of it.

Lessons learned tonight:

Old fogged film is really hard to print well.

I could use a 75 or 80mm lens for my enlarger.

The gralab 525 timer I just got is pretty awesome compared to the old clock-face enlarger timer I used to use.

My easel sucks.

I need a vent fan of some sort, or maybe to try some alternative stop solution. Cough cough.

My kid thinks it's really cool to watch the image appear on the paper.

I would post a photo, but they are still soggy.

J.
 
Welcome back to the dark side. I'm sure you'll have the kinks sorted out in no time. Those kids are gorgeous!
 
You can start buring edges generously. 35mm negative is always fun to print.
 
JRoosa said:
I need a vent fan of some sort, or maybe to try some alternative stop solution. Cough cough.
Click to expand...

Get some citric acid from your local supermarket - You should find in in "home brewing" or the cookery aisle, or failing that, a decent chemist should stock it. A teaspoon per litre is all that you need for an odourless stop bath. The downside is you don't get an indication when it is exhausted, but it is cheap enough that it can be disposed of at the end of each session.
 
Nice pictures!
 
I scanned those prints if you are interested.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

The citric acid based stop sounds good. I wonder if I can spike it with a little of the Kodak stop. The indicator should still work the same when the pH changes, although stop bath is virtually free compared to the other costs involved.

-J.
 

The indicator stop bath may be so diluted that its indication may not be visible.

Welcome back to the dark!
 
Acetic acid stop.........BTW That's vinegar around a buck a bottle.
 
Fumes are there even when you cannot smell them. Vent well.

Sent from my BS970 using Tapatalk
 
I see ilford makes an odorless stop too and my local shop has a bottle.

I'll suffer through the rest of my current bottle and then switch.

Vinegar is cheap too, and I have a gallon in the cupboard. Won't help the stink problem too much.

-J.
 
Any DIY light-tight vents? I can rig a squirrel cage fan to some dryer hose and run it through the basement wall and out through the crawl space with a return air vent in the door. I'd also need a filter in the return air vent since it comes from the lint filled laundry room.

J.
 
Double the dilution of your stop bath, and be prepared to replace it more often.

The RC paper doesn't absorb developer the way that FB paper does, so the more dilute stop is functional.
 
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