Rinse water temperature

Hi,

I usually rinse the film in running water after fixing. However, in my house it is difficult to control the temperature, especially in the winter. It goes from 20C to very cold and then back up to maybe 30C, in cycles.

Some say that the grains are forming aggregates as the film emulsion contracts at decreasing temperature, which cause an appearance of coarser grains.

I've decided to try the Ilford method: Fill the tank with water +-5C from development temperature, agitate 5 times and dump, repeat but this time agitate 10 times. Third time, agitate 20 times. Done!

In this way temperature should be easy to control.

Anyone with experience of this method?

Best regards,

Jonas

There is overwhelming evidence, including 30 years of my personal experience, that the Ilford method is very effective. Dont worry about Hypo Clearing Agent as that is not nescessary. As long as you dont use a hardening fixer, it works like a charm. It also has the added benefit of keeping wet time down and so reducing softening and consequent emulsion damage.

Keep the wash water +/- 1ºC. When I process in Turkey it's usually at 26 or 27ºC in the Summer as that's the ambient water temperature, it's then easy to keep the temperatures consistent, in fact it's closer to +/- 0.2ºC variation.

Ian

The Ilford wash method is very effective BUT (as I was told directly by an Ilford engineer who worked on the development of the system during the water shortages in the UK) the key is that your tank has to be clean. I have developed a method using residual hypo tests that I am very satisfied with.

Get a new clean bucket and retain this only for mixing working water at the correct temperature (you can then use this to mix developer, stop, fix and wash to ensure consistent temperatures across the process).

After fixing, remove the film and place in a jug with clean water taken from the bucket.

Despose (or store) the fix.

Now thoroughly wash the tank, lid and internal core support (on a Paterson System this is the black tube that holds the spirals and through which the chemicals flow to make everything light tight).

Now fill the tank with water from the bucket.

Remove the spiral(s) from the jug and shake well to remove as much water as possible.

Place back into tank, seal and then do ten inventions where the tank moves through a curve similar to lower case 'n' forwards and backwards.

Empty tank and repeat.

Empty tank and repeat but do twenty inversions.

Empty tank and repeat but do twenty inversions.

Fill a jug(s) with water from the bucket, add wetting agent and then add the spiral(s).

Leave to soak for 3 - 6 minutes.

Remove the film from the spiral and pour the water with wetting agent down both sides of the film and then hang to dry in a dry dust free place.

Result is fully washed films that are dust free.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

The easiest way to deal with temp-flux issues, is to measure the temp in a jug, which you constantly fill up from the tap.
Any flux in temp will be "dampened" by the water already in the jug.

If you have too much difference, your film will "crack"

I'm not recommending that anyone do this, but in my case, even at 130 degrees, it made no difference at all. See link below. Be sure to click on the pics twice to bring up the little magnifier. There is no visible grain at all. I have one of these pics printed 14x14 and it's smoooooth. Could probably print 24x24, or even 36x36 easily if I had an enlarger that could do that. Granted, a lot of this tight grain is probably due to the film/developer choice, but still....

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

jonasfj said:

Hi,

I usually rinse the film in running water after fixing. However, in my house it is difficult to control the temperature, especially in the winter. It goes from 20C to very cold and then back up to maybe 30C, in cycles.

Some say that the grains are forming aggregates as the film emulsion contracts at decreasing temperature, which cause an appearance of coarser grains.

I've decided to try the Ilford method: Fill the tank with water +-5C from development temperature, agitate 5 times and dump, repeat but this time agitate 10 times. Third time, agitate 20 times. Done!

In this way temperature should be easy to control.

Anyone with experience of this method?

Best regards,

Jonas

Click to expand...

I agree that the Ilford method is very effective but I still prefer washig film and paper in running water at a constant temp of 20











C for simplicity and not having to watch the paint dry.Of course using the Intellifaucet makes that easy.

momus said:

I'm not recommending that anyone do this, but in my case, even at 130 degrees, it made no difference at all. See link below. Be sure to click on the pics twice to bring up the little magnifier. There is no visible grain at all. I have one of these pics printed 14x14 and it's smoooooth. Could probably print 24x24, or even 36x36 easily if I had an enlarger that could do that. Granted, a lot of this tight grain is probably due to the film/developer choice, but still....

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Click to expand...

The mistake is to assume all films behave in the same way, they don't and choice of developer can make a significant cnage as well to the emulsion, Rodinal/R09 contains free Hydroxide and that softens some emulsion far more than others.

Tight temperature control is easy so there's no need for lazy sloppy work practices.

Ian

John Bragg said:

There is overwhelming evidence, including 30 years of my personal experience, that the Ilford method is very effective. Dont worry about Hypo Clearing Agent as that is not nescessary. As long as you dont use a hardening fixer, it works like a charm. It also has the added benefit of keeping wet time down and so reducing softening and consequent emulsion damage.

Click to expand...

When I wash Acros 100 film, the used wash water pours out a nice pink color. Using the Ilford method, the wash water will always be pink. I wash Acros much more than the Ilford method, until the wash water pours out colorless. Usually a total of 6 to 7 changes of water are required.

The Ilford wash system works. Don't do any clever shortcuts. It is simple to keep wash-water temperature within 1C of the processing temperature when 20C or even 24C is chosen -- aiming for +/-5C seems 'strange'. Having a household heating system that gives room temperatures varying between 20C and 30C is not going to be very cost effective surely? You could spend that money on more film after all!

You should avoid "shocking" the film by a sudden change in temperature. This is what can cause problems. If the wash water temperature is reduced in small steps there should be no problem. But I must say that in all the many years I have been processing film and using whatever water temperature was available I have never experienced a problem. Modern emulsions are pre-hardened and resistant to such problems. It really takes extraordinary measures to cause reticulation with them. Don't over think this.

I have had Neopan 400 reticulate even with modest rinse temperature changes, in the same tank with tri-x that was fine. It depends on the film.

Thanks for sharing all your experiences. BR, Jonas

If your rinse water is cold then it works slower at 15C double the inversion.

With cold facuet and electric kettle it is easy to stay at 20C...

Gerald C Koch said:

You should avoid "shocking" the film by a sudden change in temperature. This is what can cause problems. If the wash water temperature is reduced in small steps there should be no problem. But I must say that in all the many years I have been processing film and using whatever water temperature was available I have never experienced a problem. Modern emulsions are pre-hardened and resistant to such problems. It really takes extraordinary measures to cause reticulation with them. Don't over think this.

Click to expand...

That's false assumptions, a large proportion of films are well hardened but not all. There are surface artifacts that can occur with some films (and papers) with quite modest temperature changes these are often called micro or incipient reticulation and the effect is to increase apparent Graininess when a film is printed or scanned.

And then there's still full blown reticulation and the surprise is how frequently this can happen.

BetterSense said:

I have had Neopan 400 reticulate even with modest rinse temperature changes, in the same tank with tri-x that was fine. It depends on the film.

Click to expand...

It's easy to maintain temperatures to +/- 1ºC so it makes sense to do it consistently, that way you ensure you don't have issues with your films.

Ian