The confusing thing is, to try and figure out what the fixing time is, I stuck a strip of paper in there to see how long it takes to clear. It never cleared, but the paper fixed in about two minutes.
But how do you know the paper actually fixed?
If you want to test fixing time with paper, one way is to put several marks on a strip of paper. Then, in room light, immerse it in fixer up to the first mark for some time (say 5 seconds). Then immerse to the second mark for another time interval, and so on. Finally, immerse the entire strip into DEVELOPER (not your good tray of developer, pour a bit out for this test).
Since the fixer would ideally remove all of the developable silver halide, fully fixed paper will stay white in developer. The parts that get darker were obviously not fully fixed. So you find the first part which stayed white, and figure how long it was immersed in fixer (you'll probably find this to be about 10 seconds in a commercial rapid fix).
In the case of FILM, it will actually get clear, so is not necessary to use developer to test film fixing times.
I don't like to think I'm as incompetent as this post made me sound.
Well, of course you're incompetent, everybody is when they start out! But by suffering through these experiments, you'll have learned these things the hard way, which to me means that you have learned them better.
When one of your friends, who always follows the instructions, eventually has something go wrong, you'll be able to say, "Ok, let's test it like so and see what went wrong." Your friends will say "HOW did you know to do that?" and they'll think you're a genius.
The important thing, to me, is that you have fun learning how the things work. And try to make your screw-ups when there's nothing at stake. Good luck.
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