How do you dry your negatives?

[Harry Stevens]

Dry them all as fast you want but I still think they need a 12-24 hours to harden, I use the bathroom and no heating just a small window partly opened .

 

[RattyMouse]

Dry them all as fast you want but I still think they need a 12-24 hours to harden, I use the bathroom and no heating just a small window partly opened .

Yeah, I took down some negatives that were fully dry after 2-3 hours and then tried to scan them. Horribly curly making the scanning process a real pain. I need to just let them hang overnight to fully harden in the straight position.

Lesson learned.

 

[mgb74]

I build a dryer out of a metal office cabinet for a community darkroom. Left the top shelf in (to which I attached film clips) and removed the others. This cabinets had pre-drilled holes in the corners and the shelf. I covered the holes below the shelf but left the ones on top open. I drilled a hole and mounted a computer fan - with filter - to blow into the cabinet at the bottom. No heat. 1 or 2 rolls generally take 30 minutes to dry; more would take a bit more time.

Blowing into the cabinet creates positive pressure with filtered air to minimize dust. Holes at top allow airflow from bottom to top. I believe the lack of heat minimizes film curl, but I can't back that up. A 2nd fan at the bottom would likely improve performance.

A better choice for a home darkroom might be prefab pantry cabinets that are relatively deep but not very wide.

 

[lauffray]

I just hang them in a row in a different room to dry and clip a wooden clothespin to the bottom as a weight

 

[Jim Jones]

In college I hung lots of 35mm film to dry from a wire strung across a carpeted bedroom. It also provided lots of material to perfect print spotting.

 

[kb3lms]

Built a drying cabinet out of plywood with an electric reptile heater bulb in the bottom. Film is dry in 10 to 15 minutes with no dust.

 

[Lanthanum]

I am using a DIY cabinet (not built by me, part of a darkroom lot). It is tall enough for 35mm roll film, will dry 4 at a time, has a hairdryer and a stocking filter, film dries in 10 to 15 minutes, no dust.

 

[Harry Stevens]

I once left a 100 watt lightbulb turned on overnight by accident in a small pantry and I was met with a warm blast of air when I opened the door the next day.

 

[rpavich]

In my last home, i had a nice bathroom where I could do all the work developing my negatives and then hang them in the shower. In my current home, I have a single bathroom and so I don't do any developing work there. Instead I work in the basement and then run upstairs and hang the negatives in the single bathroom. This is HIGHLY undesirable for several reasons. I'd really really like to dry my negatives in the basement but fear major dust contamination. I need some type of cabinet to store my negatives while they are drying. At B & H I can see that they sell such cabinets but they are quite expensive.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1949-REG/Arkay_602558_Film_Drying_Cabinet_CD_40.html

This would work for sure, but seems like massive overkill for me. I never have more than 6 rolls of film hanging at any one time and usually 2 or 3.

What else can I do to dry my negatives safety in my basement?

Thank you!

I have two film dryers called "Honeywell Kleen" that I use. I take the roll of film directly from the tank to a salad spinner and spin 99% of the water off of the film first, then they go into the dryer.
In 50 minutes, I'm scanning dust free. I can go from shooting to having scanned photos in less than 2 hours.

 

[aagiv]

Ibut the insane curling of my TRI-X's (135) no matter what I tried.
But now that Kodak has successfully addressed the issue my darkroom work is nice and easy.

This might be the biggest thing I'm taking from this thread... Are you saying that the Tri-X film base has been changed and doesn't curl like it did a couple of years ago?

 

[RobertP]

I was fortunate enough to find a large Drymaster cabinet for the price of picking it up. The nice thing about this is the heater and fan are set on a timer. Set it and walk away. This was a few years ago when a lot of wet labs were closing. Just keep looking one will eventually fall in your lap. Sorry about the bad phone pic.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

You're going to laugh, but I have my darkroom area in the basement right adjacent to the house furnace. I hang my film there, with three cats running freely around, and amazingly I don't really have dust problems. Most of the time my 35mm and 120 negs print needing maybe two or three spots checked with a spotting brush and that's it.
I don't know if I'm lucky or not, but I also think that it makes a difference how the film is prepared prior to hanging up to dry; I use the Sprint wetting agent, and an old windshield wiper to wipe off all excess moisture before hanging to dry (Sprint does recommend to remove excess prior to hanging up). Making sure I am using very gentle pressure, and with 35mm film I shake off all excess moisture I can before using the wiper blade so not to trap moisture in the sprocket holes (where residual wetting agent may build up when drying, causing problems once sleeved).
It works for me. No scratches, no dust, clean prints and scans with extremely low dust spotting needs, in spite of living in a climate with extremely low humidity in the winter.

For a while I did use an old clothes wardrobe, the kind you hang up on the rail and put clothes inside. I did this in fear of cat hair and dust, and it worked really well, but I got in a hurry one day and didn't have time for the extra step of putting the film in the wardrobe, so I just hung it up on a line from the rafters, and they came out perfect.

FWIW.