Cleaning old/dirty negatives.

Mike Kennedy

Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2005
Messages
1,594
Location
Eastern Cana
Format
Multi Format
Just received an envelope containing 6 old negs. from the 1930's.Talk about rough shape.Stains,finger prints & dirt.
Read some of the posts dealing with this issue that suggest either:1.Bath in pure isopropyl alcohol 2.A mix of I.A and photo flow.
Has anyone done this with old negs.?
 

yellowcat

Member
Joined
May 19, 2008
Messages
114
Location
Bristol, Eng
Format
35mm
It depends a lot how bad they are.
Sometimes cleaning with PEC 12 Photographic Emulsion Cleaner is all that is needed.
Re-washing should work, but with old nitrate negatives there's a chance of the emulsion coming away from the base.

If the negs were not well fixed originally then re-fixing and re-washing is an option.

I have had good results in cleaning old negs using a C41 formaldehyde based stabiliser bath.

The link below may be useful

http://cool-palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey/an/an26/an26-5/an26-512.html
 
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