Flattening tightly rolled film

[pbromaghin]

A coworker has a box full of old roll film from the 50-60s, mostly Kodak B&W 120. These rolls have been tightly rolled up, untouched since that time and she is wondering how to flatten them out so she can put them into Print File storage pages. The first thing that came to mind was to put them in a room with a humidifier for a few days. But then I realized I have no idea what I'm talking about. Any suggestions?

 

[Jeff Bradford]

I flatten between two sheets of glass held together with spring clamps. It can take days or even weeks, depending on how stubborn the curl is.

 

[Colin Corneau]

How fragile are the rolls, after so many decades?

Putting them between glass seems like a good idea, unless they'll break or crack after so long.

 

[pbromaghin]

How fragile are the rolls, after so many decades?

Putting them between glass seems like a good idea, unless they'll break or crack after so long.

The fragility is a lot of her concern. She thought to soak them in water for a time to soften them up before attempting to unroll.

 

[bdial]

DO NOT soak them while rolled up. The layers will stick together and getting them apart without damage will be very difficult.
You could load them on a processing reel then soak, but I don't think it would help much and could introduce new problems like getting dust on them while drying and the wet emulsion will be very fragile.

I would probably get some split sleeving like the photo finishers use, and get the film into that, cut into strips then weight it under some books or whatever, and hope for the best.
After it's straight it can be re-sleeved into pages, or, using the Print File "Ultra" pages you can put the sleeved film into the pages.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I was going to send you a PM because I wasn't sure I wanted this procedure in the searchable record, but it worked really well for me. Anyone else reading this who has concerns, please feel free to add them so others thinking of trying this will be forewarned.

I had the same problem with the negatives associated with (there was a url link here which no longer exists), and described in the first comment post below it.

What I did was to take each roll (they were all 35mm rolls) and gently wind it onto a regular stainless steel reel, curl facing inwards. Since they were curled on the emulsion side, this was the standard orientation and placed the emulsion side facing inward. Then I pre-wetted the rolls and refixed them. Once fixed, I gave them a gentle extended washing. All temperatures were at 68F/20C.

I then took a second identical empty reel, dunked it into the wash water, and carefully transferred the still-wet roll from the first reel onto the second reel. As I did this I reversed the orientation of the film. This placed the emulsion side facing outward.

I then performed a final rinse in distilled water to eliminate spotting, shook off the excess, and allowed the film to dry while still spooled on the second reel.

The result was that about 90%+ of the curl vanished. That was enough to allow both scanning and storage in plastic pages. Stored flat, that last 10%- of the residual curl eventually disappeared almost completely.

However, for critical sharpness I was still forced to print them using an AN glass negative carrier.

The warnings to future readers should be obvious. If possible, pick out the least important specimen and test the full procedure before committing the remaining valuable rolls. Emulsion cracking is a real possibility. It may be that I just got lucky.

Ken

 

[pbromaghin]

Thanks to all of you. Once more apug comes through!

 

[nosmok]

There's also the quick and (not so)dirty method discussed (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[jvoller]

I will confess to having done something that is, I suspect, even riskier than the techniques already mentioned as ways to deal with impossibly curled (as well as "cupped") film: once the roll has dried, spool it with the emulsion side facing out (Patterson reels work very well here) then "heat" the reel with a blow-dryer set at its lowest heat setting, keeping the dryer moving slowly over the side of the reel for about 10 seconds and keeping it a safe distance away (6-8"). Flip the reel over and do the same to the other side. Let the film return to room temperature. Whenever I've done this, the rolls prove to be very "relaxed," in most cases laying perfectly flat or close to it, and easily printable/scannable. I haven't needed to do this for a while, since the films I usually shoot now behave themselves properly, but this was a technique that has in the past allowed me to use some rolls that were utterly resistant to being weighted down, or re-wetted and hung w/ a few extra ounces attached to the bottom weight, or anything else I could think of.

I've always half-suspected this might be heresy from an archival standpoint, but then again using blowdryers to dry films is, or at least used to be, considered a reasonable if not common practice.

Proceed, as always, at your own risk.

 

[GRHazelton]

Good info! While going through the film my father shot and processed himself in the 30's and 40's, I discovered to my horror that many 35mm negatives had been rolled up and inserted into the metal cans in which the cassettes came! OMG! If I pull the free end the film will rub on itself as it is extracted, and will almost certainly be scratched, in addition to curled.

Any ideas??

 

[MartinCrabtree]

I have a sleeved roll of Kodak C-41 B&W sitting under a humidor trying to flatten it out. It's been in a canister rolled up since 1999 when It was developed and they screwed up the prints. Now that I have a better idea of what I'm looking at the negatives are probably scannable or even printable the lab just didn't understand what they were doing. We shall see.