EMERGENCY -- need advice on water damage to negatives.

Rolleiflexible · Wednesday at 12:25 PM

I apologize for coming here to seek advice after being away for the past year.

My wife Melanie, whom many of you know, (melaniereneeking.com) has shot buckets of Tri-X over the years. Her archive of negatives has just been soaked by a burst pipe. Over fifteen full binders's worth -- her most of her film production over the past 20 years.

I am about to run over and see what can be done and assess the extent of the damage. Her first look showed the water had gotten into the vinyl sleeves and wetted the emulsions. My sense is that these need to come out of the sleeves, be fully wetted, and hung up to dry. My fear is that if they are left to dry in the sleeves, the emulsions will attach to the plastic, and destroy the negatives when removed from the sleeve later.

And I assume that the negatives need to be wetted fully before resleeving, to avoid water spots in the emulsions.

Does this sound right?

We are talking about doing this for thousands of rolls (mostly 120 Tri-X but also some color Portra 800). Any shortcut you might suggest would be much appreciated.

MattKing · Wednesday at 2:46 PM

Sanders,
Sorry that this has happened to Melanie and you.
@Kino might be able to assist with this, although much of his experience might be more relevant to old motion picture stock.

Rayt · Wednesday at 2:52 PM

This happened to me but only with a few pages so nowhere near your scope. If the emulsion dries inside the pages they’ll stick so I had to carefully cut them open and rewash the negs in distilled water with some wetting agent. I then placed the negs emulsion up inside a dry cabinet I used for gear to avoid dust settling and quicker drying. I’d imagine given your volume maybe dry them in covered storage bins at least to avoid dust.

MattKing · Wednesday at 2:55 PM

With respect to C41 colour negatives, after rewashing it would be advisable to use the Kodak Final Rinse or an equivalent as the last stage before re-drying. The Bactericide incorporated in the Final Rinse helps with longevity for colour negatives.

mshchem · Wednesday at 2:55 PM

Maybe Kodak Flexicolor Final Rinse or Fujifilm E6 Final Rinse. These have anti- microbial agents. Good old Tri-X is pretty tough. I wouldn't let them dry out.

Sirius Glass · Wednesday at 3:05 PM

So sorry to read about you water problem with those valuable negatives.

Kino · Wednesday at 3:56 PM

Get them out of the sleeves NOW!

Dunk them in a clean bucket of water and let them sit a minute or two before extracting.

Move to another containers filled with the most clean water you can find, distilled the best.

They can soak a bit without harm if they are modern emulsions on modern bases.

Try to segregate B&W from color if possible.

From there, string out clothes lines in the cleanest area you can find and mix a big tub of photoflo. Dip each one in the photoflo and hang to dry.

Do not use fans or dust will fly up onto the film and embed in the emulsion.

MORE: As painful as it may be, do NOT reuse those negative sleeves. You need new ones after the film is totally dry.

There may be water spots, but that's OK. You can either rewash them in water/photoflo again OR try something like PEC or Kodak Film Cleaner to remove the spots. Only do this when they are totally dry.

The important thing now is to safely extract the film from the sleeves, rinse and dry them. Other remedial actions can take place once they have been stabilized, but your biggest danger now is the emulsion adhering to the sleeves or dirt getting embedded in the emulsion.

grahamp · Wednesday at 6:00 PM

You may need to soak the file sheets fully to get the negative sheets out - sometimes they stick if not fully wet. You definitely do not want them in partially wet sleeves and risking mold.

If you can be systematic as you hang the film and stack the old binder pages, you may get a jump start on the eventual re-cataloging.

Find someone to provide food. You are going to be very busy. And good luck!

MattKing · Wednesday at 6:13 PM

grahamp said:
Find someone to provide food. You are going to be very busy. And good luck!

Plus someone to help keep track of which negatives are which - assuming you have identifying information on the sleeves.

Kino · Wednesday at 6:21 PM

After Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, a film archive (in a basement no less) was flooded. Most of the material was 16mm motion picture film from the life's work of many local artists.

They took large, plastic 55 gallon drums and filled them with the flood water (all that was available) and put the film in these drums. Shipped them to a refrigerated facility and slowly started removing them one by one to run back through film processing machines with the Kodak RW1 solution (I believe).

It took a very long time, but I do believe they were largely successful despite the contaminants in the flood water.

See: https://www.brianpritchard.com/FAOL/contents/2604200faol/Foncd/TEXTS/sect_6/rewa6.html

Rolleiflexible · Wednesday at 9:56 PM

Guys, thanks for the replies. As it turns out, we had a busy afternoon but the damage was not nearly so extensive as feared. The vinyl binders shed a lot of the water, and only a few got enough of a deluge to wick into the sleeves and wet the negatives.

So now Melanie has a darkroom full of film strips drying -- a drag but not the loss of a life's work. I have told her to junk the old sleeves per Kino and Graham's observations, and to resleeve with fresh pages.

I am most grateful to you all, even if I have been a bad member of late. (Especially since.)

To my Canadian friends: Elbows up, y'all!

Sanders

MattKing · Wednesday at 11:15 PM

Rolleiflexible said:
To my Canadian friends: Elbows up, y'all!

Sanders,
All the best to you and Melanie.

snusmumriken · Thursday at 2:27 AM

When I have had to re-wash and dry short strips of negatives, I’ve chained them together by feeding paper clips through the sprocket holes. Tedious but effective.

Kino · Thursday at 8:52 AM

snusmumriken said:
When I have had to re-wash and dry short strips of negatives, I’ve chained them together by feeding paper clips through the sprocket holes. Tedious but effective.

That is a creative way to solve the problem of drying short strips of film!

Kino · Thursday at 9:02 AM

Rolleiflexible said:
Guys, thanks for the replies. As it turns out, we had a busy afternoon but the damage was not nearly so extensive as feared. The vinyl binders shed a lot of the water, and only a few got enough of a deluge to wick into the sleeves and wet the negatives.

Great news! Glad it turned out better than anticipated.

loccdor · Thursday at 9:16 AM

Kino said:
After Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, a film archive (in a basement no less) was flooded. Most of the material was 16mm motion picture film from the life's work of many local artists.

They took large, plastic 55 gallon drums and filled them with the flood water (all that was available) and put the film in these drums. Shipped them to a refrigerated facility and slowly started removing them one by one to run back through film processing machines with the Kodak RW1 solution (I believe).

It took a very long time, but I do believe they were largely successful despite the contaminants in the flood water.

See: https://www.brianpritchard.com/FAOL/contents/2604200faol/Foncd/TEXTS/sect_6/rewa6.html

That's very interesting - I'm a Hurricane Katrina evacuee and hadn't heard that story before. Two weeks ago was the 20 year anniversary.

Kino · Thursday at 9:27 AM

loccdor said:
That's very interesting - I'm a Hurricane Katrina evacuee and hadn't heard that story before. Two weeks ago was the 20 year anniversary.

The World of film archives is pretty insular except to those in the "business". In other words, no one really cares that much...

loccdor · Thursday at 9:44 AM

Kino said:
no one really cares that much...

Until they see what they were missing!

GregY · Thursday at 12:52 PM

Sanders, I'm glad the water damage was minimal & the negatives have been saved.
Thanks... Elbows are still up!

Donald Qualls · Thursday at 1:39 PM

Rolleiflexible said:
My sense is that these need to come out of the sleeves, be fully wetted, and hung up to dry. My fear is that if they are left to dry in the sleeves, the emulsions will attach to the plastic, and destroy the negatives when removed from the sleeve later.

As I understand it (having never had this particular problem, but having seen prints that got wet in contact with other surfaces), you're right -- and you have a limited window in which to do it. If (as seems likely) there's a shortage of hanger clips for the number of negatives, they can be kept in room temperature water (ideally distilled/filtered, but clean tap water is better than none) almost indefinitely.

EMERGENCY -- need advice on water damage to negatives.

Rolleiflexible

MattKing

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Rayt

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mshchem

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EMERGENCY -- need advice on water damage to negatives.

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