Refixing and rewashing negatives that are a year old

[daggerlee]

Hi all,

Going through my archives I found about ten rolls of 35mm from a year ago that have a yellowish cast to them. This was early on in my film processing career when I didn't understand too much about fixer life and I think I may have fixed them using exhausted fixer. The negatives aren't cloudy but just have a yellowish cast to them, quite different than the usual grey or greyish-purple cast my negatives usually have.

I was thinking about carefully loading them onto reels and re-fixing and re-washing them. Any tips? Should I presoak first? Do you think it's necessary?

 

[tkamiya]

Typically, once the film is stained, there isn't all that much you can do.

You could take an unimportant part of the film, try refixing it, rewashing it, and see what happens. What do you have to lose? Not much...

 

[daggerlee]

Thanks for the advice. I just cut off a clear strip and refixed it and it did get rid of the yellowness. However after soaking in water for ten minutes some clear 'gummy' substance started coming off, which is probably the emulsion or gelatin? I think I'll run another test and see what happens if I allow it to dry without any kind of rough handling to see if that happens again or if the negative stays stable.

 

[daggerlee]

I just did an entire roll - it went okay. The yellowness went away. Have to be careful in handling them after the wash. Some strips started bubbling in the clear areas and the gelatin was relatively fragile. After it dried everything is okay.

 

[wblynch]

Keep the temperature down to 68~70* F.

I had a friend back in the day who thought washing his film with hot water would get it cleaner and faster.

When he pulled the negatives from the reel, the emulsion slid right off the base in a big goopy glob.

 

[daggerlee]

Thanks for the tip. I did 5 rolls today, the wash water was a little warm and some of the clear parts did bubble. It was mostly the Fuji Neopan, the Kodak Tri-X was fine. Still have 5 rolls left to do, some of which is Ilford Delta 3200, will see how well that turns out. The yellow staining was completely washed out btw.