As I've mentioned before, I was "out of the darkroom" for about a dozen years, due to relationship changes, job requirements, and a house move. Now that I'm able to process again (and print, soon), I'm catching up on film that was exposed, with expectation of reasonably prompt processing, and then stored.
Some of that film is a group of four 4x5 sheets (Fortepan 400 under the Arista .EDU label -- not .EDU Ultra, which is Fomapan) that were left in my home built tubular daylight tanks for the past approximately twelve years.
These tanks are made from ABS drain pipe; the pipe I used is big enough for the 4" dimension to wrap around inside the pipe (for 9x12, I can wrap the long dimension, allowing use of shorter tubes and less developer) -- and that's how these four films have been stored, at room temperature (say, 15-28 C), for the past about twelve years.
I went into the darkroom this morning, planning to transfer these films to my Yankee Agitank (along with loading some recently exposed sheets of the same stock that spent the same time in film holders), and found that although I could pretty readily uncurl the film enough to go through the slot in the loading aid and into the guides in the plates, as soon as I let go of it it would curl enough to pull the edges out of the guides and fall free.
Is there a reasonable way to get these to uncurl, either before processing (so I can run them in the Angitank) or afterward (I can still process them in the tubes, but I'll still need to uncurl them after they dry if I do)? I don't want to reload them in the tubes, other way out, as that would put the emulsion against the tube's inner surface. Scratching isn't a big problem with these tubes, but loading them emulsion out is asking for trouble. Once processed, I'll need them to fit in the negative carrier for my scanner and that of my enlarger as well (if any are worthy of printing -- I think one is the backup for one of my favorites that has a good sized scratch from tray processing, so likely at least one is worthy).
Some of that film is a group of four 4x5 sheets (Fortepan 400 under the Arista .EDU label -- not .EDU Ultra, which is Fomapan) that were left in my home built tubular daylight tanks for the past approximately twelve years.
These tanks are made from ABS drain pipe; the pipe I used is big enough for the 4" dimension to wrap around inside the pipe (for 9x12, I can wrap the long dimension, allowing use of shorter tubes and less developer) -- and that's how these four films have been stored, at room temperature (say, 15-28 C), for the past about twelve years.
I went into the darkroom this morning, planning to transfer these films to my Yankee Agitank (along with loading some recently exposed sheets of the same stock that spent the same time in film holders), and found that although I could pretty readily uncurl the film enough to go through the slot in the loading aid and into the guides in the plates, as soon as I let go of it it would curl enough to pull the edges out of the guides and fall free.
Is there a reasonable way to get these to uncurl, either before processing (so I can run them in the Angitank) or afterward (I can still process them in the tubes, but I'll still need to uncurl them after they dry if I do)? I don't want to reload them in the tubes, other way out, as that would put the emulsion against the tube's inner surface. Scratching isn't a big problem with these tubes, but loading them emulsion out is asking for trouble. Once processed, I'll need them to fit in the negative carrier for my scanner and that of my enlarger as well (if any are worthy of printing -- I think one is the backup for one of my favorites that has a good sized scratch from tray processing, so likely at least one is worthy).
