Ilford MGIV Fiber with Heico Perma Wash, times?

[hpulley]

Ilford recommends 5 minutes running water, 10 minutes in Ilford Washaid intermittent agitation, 5 minutes running water for best results with Ilford MGIV Fiber. But I find it easier to get Heico Perma Wash. Heico recommends 5, 5, 5 for DW fiber so I've been using that but I'm wondering if Ilford's 5, 10, 5 would be better? While possible I doubt the Perma Wash is really twice as fast as Ilford Washaid, or could it be?

I like the 5, 5, 5 workflow as I can get prints washing for 5 while I'm agitating some for 5, then put those back in for 5, put the previous batch from running water into the perma wash, etc. With a 10 minute washaid cycle my workflow will be wrong. Am I short changing it by doing 5? I know, I should probably be doing selenium but 10 minutes toning and another 30 minutes washing I could only do for really special stuff.

Loving the fiber by the way. If I can get away with my 5, 5, 5 workflow I can see only using RC when I need to have a print dried really fast.

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

Maybe if you are using two-bath fixing, and confirming the strength of the first bath . . .and still 5 minutes is awfully short.

I don't know how your darkroom is set up for work flow. The fastest way for me to get through fiber prints is 1) develop 2) water stop 3) fix #1 4) holding bath. Put fix one back in the bottle, dump in fix 2 (no need to wash the tray). Then run all prints through fix 2, into the wash for 10 minutes, permawash 5 minutes with agitation (or ten without), then final wash. I usually go get a cup of coffee or a beer, so the final wash is maybe 20 minutes.

I have found no problem with putting prints in a holding bath, lights on, after a 30 second trip through the first fixer.

 

[ic-racer]

The only way to know is to test for residual fixer. I use Permawash and Ilford paper with the 5,5,5 and last time I tested it was fine with my setup. For wash I used a 5 min constant shuffle in a tray with a siphon.

When I decide to fill up the archival washer, I just let the prints stay in that for the full 60 min unattended without the Permawash.

 

[jmcd]

Make a test solution of HT-2, which checks for residual fixer. It will help you establish a dependable wash cycle that does the job well without wasting water.

 

[hpulley]

My enlarger, dev, stop and fixer trays are away from my sink, Kodak syphon wash tray and permawash tray since that stuff is over by the laundry and I haven't been able to take over the laundry sorting table area for my enlarger. So in fact, a two fix setup with holding tank would work well for me. Right now I'm single fixing, putting in a holding tray and then taking a couple over to be washed, then I do the next one or two during some of the wash cycles but your two bath sounds like it might work better for me. Do all the dev, stop, fix 1, hold, then do all the fix 2, then take all to be washed at once. Thanks for that.

And thanks for the HT-2 tip, I hadn't thought of the fixer residue tester. I'm used to doing test strips for developer and fixer to make sure they're still good and I use indicator stop bath so I can tell when it's off, I should have thought to test the wash as well.