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HCA to Prevent Fixer Fingerprints?

Dan Rainer

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Mar 28, 2024
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Location
Georgia, USA
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I have small home darkroom where I print on RC paper. I use Ansco 130 then a running water stop and two baths of TF4 alkaline fixer. My space is cramped but I do my utmost to avoid cross-contamination. I wear gloves when agitating fixer and keep all chemistry as separate as possible. However, try as I might, by the end of a long printing session I start to build up fixer residue on my fingers and end up transferring it onto the paper while pulling it from the paper safe. This results in gross brown marks on the edges of my prints.

As I don't use FB paper, I don't have hypo clearing agent in the darkroom, but while thinking about my dilemma I considered making some as a hand-wash between rounds of printing. I reasoned that this would neutralize any fixer building up on my finger tips. I could just have it in a 5x7 tray next to my print washer. Is this feasible/advised?
 
Why on earth would you be getting fixer on your fingers if you are using plastic gloves? Don't you rinse your gloves in running water between critical steps? Or are you touching contaminated surfaces not routinely cleaned? HCA isn't going to cure lapses in basic practice.
 
You should be using 3 sets of tongs for transferring prints between trays. And never dip any of the tongs into more than one tray. Plastic, metal or bamboo tongs are easy to find.
 

I have to put the gloves on and take them off, the contamination might be happening there. I clean my surface between printing sessions, but chemical residue inevitably builds up over the course of a session. I take great efforts to avoid contamination, and this has worked up to a point. Was just wondering if there was an easy way to ensure no fix builds up on skin over time.

djdister said:
You should be using 3 sets of tongs for transferring prints between trays.
Click to expand...
I have three stainless steel tongs, each dedicated to its respective chemistry.
 

So how do you get fixer on your fingers?
 
djdister said:
So how do you get fixer on your fingers?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure, but it probably has something to do with the nature of my space. I'm working off of a plastic shelving unit in a shower. While each shelf has slats for excess chemistry to sluice through, it often builds up over the course of print session. Contamination could happen while putting on or removing my gloves, it could be accumulated fixer near the lip of the print washer, it could be from trace amounts on the GraLab timer hand. I've been unable to identify the source of the contamination, but it only seems to show after a dozen or so prints. This to me suggests a gradual accumulation over time.

I was just try to see if there was a simple chemical solution to the problem.
 
I put one nitrile glove on one hand, and I don't take it off.
The gloved hand is the only one that handles anything wet, and I rinse it frequently.
The other hand only touches dry things - and never the tongs.
 
I would advise that you don't wear gloves at all, that way you can feel if your fingers are wet and rinse and dry them before touching a print.
 
In my experience, gloved fingers are far easier to keep free of fixer residue - through rinsing - than un-gloved fingers.
Nitrile doesn't absorb much fixer, skin loves to absorb fixer.
 
Your alkaline fixer can also potentially become a weak monobath with throughput. So it could be that on your hands, or developer or water with developer in it. Rinse and dry your hands before touching paper is really all you can do. I’d use an acid stop and neutral / weakly acidic fixer especially in a small space but that’s a whole other argument.
 
  • cliveh
  • Deleted
Are you making huge prints? That is the only reason to ever use your hands. If you are doing 8x10s then just use tongs. Don't put your hands in the chemistry, ever.

Post a picture of your "gross brown spots" so we can see them. You could just be carrying over developer where your fingers are holding the paper.
 
MattKing said:
In my experience, gloved fingers are far easier to keep free of fixer residue - through rinsing - than un-gloved fingers.
Nitrile doesn't absorb much fixer, skin loves to absorb fixer.
Click to expand...

But you can't feel through gloves.
 

Like everyone else says, I think you should be using tongs to the extent that fixer never gets on your hands. I also am a little unclear on "agitating fixer" and wonder if that's part of the issue. RC paper especially, doesn't need particularly painstaking agitation or vigorous sloshing. I haven't printed in a wet darkroom in a while, to be honest, but all I ever did to "agitate" in developer or fixer was push the paper a little with the tongs, or nudge the tray so the liquid moved back and forth. You could maybe pick the paper up with tongs halfway through and put it back in the tray. That would mix everything up far more than necessary.
 
cliveh said:
But you can't feel through gloves.
Click to expand...

But I can - and anyways, that is what two dexterous handed photographers use their dry hand for - the fiddly stuff.
 
I used my bare hands and never tongs. Except for 11x14 or larger, I would use the right hand (no gloves either - I go for simplicity) to carry prints through trays, Ethyl LPD, plain water stop (not running - no need), and 2 TF4 or TF5 fixer trays, like the OP. The left hand never gets wet (unless larger prints) and does most of the paper handling. The right gets a good running water rinse ( under the tap) and towel dry after each print tray cycle. If the right ever touches paper, it's not the emulsion, maybe the edge. When I was 10, and learning printing from a Japanese man, I saw the telltale white/yellow finger prints, and asked him what they were. He told me, and said, "you are being sloppy, not good for a photographer." I never had them again. I can't imagine using gloves and ever knowing for sure if they were dry.
 
I don't recommend bare fingers at all. Fixer adheres much more stubbornly to skin than nitrile gloves. You need SOAP and water for skin, whereas the glove will rinse off with plain water. Then there are potential health or allergy issues with certain developers. I can't ever remember getting a fingerprint fixer issue on any of my prints of any size, over all these decades! Just think of stray fixer as a contagion to everything you touch with affected fingers or clothing - dooknobs, enlarger controls, faucets.

John Wesley Powell might have been one-armed (just like my Great Grandfather after the Civil War), when he led a boat expedition down the Colorado River for the first time. But at least he had the good sense to enlist a two-armed photographer (Timothy O Sullivan). I don't get this sport of one arm tied behind your back fencing in the dark, against a liquid opponent.

Surgeons certainly have to have a sensitive touch wearing surgical gloves; why can't photographers when wearing the same thing?
 
Dan Rainer said:
making some as a hand-wash between rounds of printing. I reasoned that this would neutralize any fixer building up on my finger tips.
Click to expand...

Hypo-clearing agent is sulfite and this in reality does not break down fixer. For this you could use a hypo eliminator, but you'll likely end up making matters a not worse it you don't address the root cause of the problem: the chemistry sticking to your fingers

In reality, the problem is very easy to avoid. A quick rinse of your (gloved) hands after taking a print from the fixer bath, followed by drying with a towel or forced air is perfectly sufficient. Alternatively, you could use print tongs to manipulate prints in the trays so your hands don't get contaminated in the first place.

Address the cause instead of applying a bandaid.
 
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