Printing FB papers.

I have been working with FB paper since last May. However, I am not sure if I am doing everything correctly. This is what I do:
Paper Ilford Multigrade IV, glossy, FB, 12x16.
Developer: Ilford Multigrade, 1+9, 2 litres in tray, 3 minutes, frequent agitation.
Stop bath: Tetenal Indicet, 1+19, 2 litres in tray, 30 seconds, constant agitation.
Fixer bath: Tetenal Superfix Plus: 1+9, 2 litres in tray, 5 minutes, frequent agitation. After twelve prints, I change the fixer.
Washing: One hour in a Nova Print Washer.
These are my doubts:
- I am not working with hippo cleaning. Is it a mistake?
- The fixer bottle recommends 60 seconds for general fixing papers, but I am working with 5 minutes because this is the time that I have always used with RC papers. Is it correct? This is my main doubt.
- I am not working with two fixer baths; this is the reason why I change the fixer each twelve prints. Is it correct?
I appreciate your comments and recommendations. Thanks,
Henry.

I am by no means the biggest expert here but I'll give you my 2 cents.

The method I have been learned for FB printing is:
- develope
- stop
- fixer 1 for 3 minutes
- fixer 2 for 3 minutes
- short rinse in water
- Hypo clearing bath for four minutes
- wash for 30 minutes

Fixer 2 is a fresh fixer and when you discard fixer 1, fixer 2 becomes fixer 1 and a new batch of fresh fixer becomes fixer 2.

Changing fixer after every 12 prints sounds a bit wasteful to me. It of course depends on the size of your prints.

A good way to find out if your fixing or washing is good enough is to try a selenium toning. You will get brown spots if not washed/fixed enough.

r

Mats

Henry Alive said:

- I am not working with hippo cleaning. Is it a mistake?

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Kind of; your washing time would be cut in half and washing would be more complete. After hypo-clearing agent a 30-minute wash at ambient is all you need.

Henry Alive said:

- The fixer bottle recommends 60 seconds for general fixing papers, but I am working with 5 minutes because this is the time that I have always used with RC papers. Is it correct? This is my main doubt.

Click to expand...

Optimal fixing is as strong as possible for as short as possible to give the fixer little time to soak into the fibers. You are doing the opposite. I recommend two-bath film-strength fixer for no more than 60s each (including drip off time). By the way, 1 minute is enough for RC.

Henry Alive said:

- I am not working with two fixer baths; this is the reason why I change the fixer each twelve prints. Is it correct?

Click to expand...

Two-bath fixing is more efficient and more economical. Give it a try.

Also, use your developer at the highest recommended concentration. Ilford often states two dilutions. Don't try to be economical or print quality will suffer.

shimoda said:

I am by no means the biggest expert here but I'll give you my 2 cents.

The method I have been learned for FB printing is:
- develope
- stop
- fixer 1 for 3 minutes
- fixer 2 for 3 minutes
- short rinse in water
- Hypo clearing bath for four minutes
- wash for 30 minutes

Fixer 2 is a fresh fixer and when you discard fixer 1, fixer 2 becomes fixer 1 and a new batch of fresh fixer becomes fixer 2.

Changing fixer after every 12 prints sounds a bit wasteful to me. It of course depends on the size of your prints.

A good way to find out if your fixing or washing is good enough is to try a selenium toning. You will get brown spots if not washed/fixed enough.

r

Mats

Click to expand...

Overfixed, which is hard to wash out, but other than that, OK!

I never use a hippo wash, mine lives in the river.

Henry, you are wise. You should never try to clean a hippo in the darkroom. You'll get brown stains and hoof marks all over your prints. Try using your local car wash instead. j/k

Seriously, your process sounds good, except I think you should extend your stop-bath to around two minutes and change it often. This is because more developer carries over in fibre paper base than with resin papers, which can leave yellow or brown marks on the print when you fix it. I found Multigrade papers quite forgiving, but that's not to say it won't happen when you want the best print quality. IMO of course.

RalphLambrecht said:

Overfixed, which is hard to wash out, but other than that, OK!

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Seems to be different opinions on this. 3 min + 3 min was recommended to us at a printing course I took this summer. I thought it was a bit too much also but the teacher had about 20 years more experience than me so I tagged along. Maybe 2 x 1,5 minutes......

Sigh! So many different opinions. All so knowledgeable. What's a girl to do?

r

Mats

shimoda said:

Seems to be different opinions on this. 3 min + 3 min was recommended to us at a printing course I took this summer. I thought it was a bit too much also but the teacher had about 20 years more experience than me so I tagged along. Maybe 2 x 1,5 minutes......

Sigh! So many different opinions. All so knowledgeable. What's a girl to do?

r

Mats

Click to expand...

What's a girl to do?

Separate opinions from facts. There is well documented research available on this, but rather than reading for days you can conduct a simple test with your materials and be done with it.

1. Cut a 1x10-inch test strip from the paper to be tested. Turn on the room lights, fully exposing the test strip for a minute. Avoid excessive exposure or daylight, as this will leave a permanent stain.
2. Dim the lights, and divide the test strip on the back into patches, drawing a line every inch. Mark the patches with fixing times from ‘45 s’ down to ‘5 s’ in 5s increments. Leave the last patch blank to use as a ‘handle’.
3. Place the whole strip into water for 3 minutes and then into a stop bath for 1 minute to simulate actual print processing conditions.
4. Immerse the strip into a fresh fixing bath, starting with the 45s patch, and continue to immerse an additional patch every 5 seconds, while agitating constantly.
5. Turn the lights on again, and thoroughly wash the test strip for 1 hour under running water to remove all traces of fixer, and tone in working-strength sulfide toner for 4 minutes. Alternatively, you can develop the strip in working strength paper developer. Then, wash again for 10 minutes and evaluate.

If the entire test strip is paper-white, all fixing times were too long. If all patches develop some density in form of a yellow or brown tone, all fixing times were too short. Adjust the fixing times if necessary and retest. A useful test strip has two or three indistinguishable paper-white patches towards the longer fixing times. The first of these patches indicates the minimum ‘clearing’ time. Double this time to include a safety factor, allowing for variations in agitation, fixer strength and temperature, and the result is the optimum fixing time. Be careful, however, not to use a fixing time of less than 1 minute, as it is difficult to ensure proper print agitation in less time, and patches of incomplete fixing might be the result. Use the optimum fixing time, but at least 1 minute for each bath, allowing the first bath to be used until archival exhaustion. After all, incomplete fixing is the most common cause for image deterioration.

So 2 x 1,5 minutes sounds like a good rule of thumb. I will conduct this test. Sounds interesting.
I did a similar test for minimum developing time. Was fun. Came to about 2,5 minutes for Ilford MGIV FB with the developer i used. Diluted 1+14.
Have now ordered some ADOX MCC and will test them in a similar manner.

r

Mats

I want to thank all the comments. I am going to use two fixer baths, like all of you suggest. The explanation that says: “Optimal fixing is as strong as possible for as short as possible to give the fixer little time to soak into the fibers. You are doing the opposite”, has been extremely clarified.
English is not my native language, but I am trying to improve it everyday. So, the hippo will continue in the river!!!
Thanks again,
Henry.

RalphLambrecht said:

If the entire test strip is paper-white, all fixing times were too long.

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Ralph,

Wouldn't this type of a test only establish the time needed to convert silver halides into monoargentomonothiosulfate so that the paper is no longer photo sensitive? I respectfully refer to prior discussions and the work by Gudzinowicz, and the suggestions by Kodak, which state that fixing process needs to convert those practically insoluble monoargento-mono-thiosulfates into the more soluble and thus washable monoargento-di-thiosulfates and the soluble monoargento-tri-thiosulfates. I am not sure if this test tests for that. Perhaps a residual thiosulfate tests (such as silver nitrate/acetic acid like HT-2) on a washed test strip might help in finding the optimum fixing time, but I am not ever sure of that.

In any case, fixing times would get shorter when using a two-bath fixation because of the higher availability of thiosulfate anions not yet bound to silver in the second bath. This perhaps would need to be built into the test.

Perhaps the margins of doubling the time, which you mentioned in your test account for those thiosulfate conversion processes, but I am wondering what would be the accuracy of the suggested test without those margins or how were those margins derived in conjunction with the nature of the test.

Please accept my apologies if I have misunderstood your point - no offence intended, I know far less than you do on this subject, I am sure.

Rafal

Rafal

Fixing is a rather complex issue. Countless byproducts form and continue to form during the process, which is even more critical with almost exhausted fixer. Hence the recommendation to use two-bath fixing with a fresh second bath. Doubling the clearing time with film or doubling the cannot-develop time with paper provides enough safety margin with fresh fixers. In fact, fixing in ammonium thiosulfate (rapid fixer) is very rapid, usually not longer than 30 s. With a minimum fixing time of 1 min in each bath, one normally have a safety margin of 4x.

As you said, HT2 tests for residual fixer after washing. The issue here is to test for residual silver halide. This test will help to determine the optimum fixing time. You can extend the test by using a drop of sulfide toner on the apparently 'fixed' white patches and see if they 'develop' anything more than a slight stain. If they do, fixing is not complete, but this would point more to exhausted fixer than too short of a fix.

Ralph,

I would have used your test for the residual silver halide, whilst using the HT2 for residual thiosulfates. Then I would have combined the results, perhaps, by choosing the longer of the two times, whilst testing with near-exhaustion 4th rotation first fix bath.