Kodak Rapid Fixer takes 3 minutes to clear film leader

Just checked my Kodak Rapid Fixer, and it took nearly 3 minutes to clear a film leader. Increase my fixing time, or toss it?

Which film?

I think the leader came from the end of some Arista EDU Ultra 100. That's what I've been shooting for quite a while, so it probably came from that.

Must have been a contrary piece of film leader. I just retested it, and this one cleared in one minute fifteen seconds. It's good to go.

Tmax is a lot slower to clear.

Fixing is temperature dependent.

Three minutes is ridiculous for a Rapid Fixer even for TMAX or Tri-X, unless the fixer was used near freezing point. Throw it out.

FWIW, a clip-test is only valuable if you have a benchmark time for your particular film in fresh fixer. Record the clearing time in fresh fixer for future use (you only have to test once for any film/fixer combination). Then test your fix before you think it is exhausted and before each batch after that. Toss the fix when it takes double the benchmark clearing time.

It's really not fun to find out you've underfixed a whole lot of film by not testing soon enough...

A reason to test unused fix would be if you suspect it to have deteriorated from age (e.g., too-old liquid fix concentrate). In this case, usually, there would be a sulfur oder (H2S) coming from the fix, indicating it is sulfuring out. There may also be a precipitate or flakes in the fixer solution.

Best,

Doremus

The clip-test is not too accurate as it depends on the temperature of the fixer. So if you test before bringing the fixer to the proper temperature then the results are skewed. The best method is to keep track of the number of in2 of film or paper processed and not exceed the manufactures recommended capacity.

Gerald C Koch said:

The clip-test is not too accurate as it depends on the temperature of the fixer. So if you test before bringing the fixer to the proper temperature then the results are skewed. The best method is to keep track of the number of in2 of film or paper processed and not exceed the manufactures recommended capacity.

Click to expand...

I use both - I record each roll of film I fix (on a strip of masking tape added to my working strength fixer bottle) and use a clip-test each time I fix film.

I use T-Max for the clip-test, because it is better to be sure, and because I currently shoot more T-Max than anything else.