Rotary processing in a Paterson tank?

[jeztastic]

Hi,

I have about ten 35mm films to develop at the moment. Been collecting them from self, family and friends. However...

Apparently 1 litre C41 kits are discontinued now, right after I bought a Paterson 3 reel tank which takes 1 Litre for this very purpose... Two 500 ml kits cost more than the 1 litre ones, so I don't want to go down that road, and I would never get through a 2.5 litre kit before it goes off.

Is it possible to put a Paterson tank on it's side in a water bath, put 500ml in and roll it continuously? If so, how does that affect development time?

I do not want to buy a Jobo or similar processor, it would be too large and too expensive, I have nowhere to store it.

Suggestions please!

 

[MattKing]

Freestyle sells the Unicolor kits.

 

[jeztastic]

That's useful info about the Unicolor - both the kits and the drum - however it seems that neither is on sale in the UK, not even on eBay...

 

[jeztastic]

Looking at the Rollei Digibase now... They do 1 litre, but a little more expensive...

 

[jeztastic]

Rereading your original post, I'd just advise using inversion processing for the C-41. Don't make a pretty easy process more complicated than it needs to be. When I used to process C-41 at home, I probably used the same 1L 3-reel Paterson tank that you have. The processing time for C-41 is short and easy, and it was super easy to do the inversion processing (just remember to "burp" the blix, and get your temperature control under control).

Here's a thread from rangefinderforum.com that I found very helpful -- C-41 really is easy to do at home!

I'd probably still be processing C-41 at home if scanning didn't make me pull my hair out, and if I didn't have a mail order lab that does great scans at a great price.

Thanks for the advice. I have done C41 quite a few times - the problem this time is balancing cost and speed/efficiency as I have quite a few films to do. It is a quick process, but not if I buy enough developer for 20 films and it goes off after 10 before I have enough for another batch. Or if I have to develop them in batches of three and dry reels inbetween...

I'm just fussing, I guess I just need to crack on with it. I think I may buy a 500ml kit and try continuously rotating the tank on its side.

 

[jeztastic]

OK, so as a test I developed 1 reel in a 2-reel Paterson tank by laying it on it's side and rotating constantly and slowly in a water bath. This worked fine.

I then went on to 8 reels in an 8-reel Paterson tank, using the same method with a 1 litre Digibase kit. The tank holds 2.5 litres, so it was less than half full.

This also worked OK, apart from that the rubber lid is not strong enough to keep the chemicals in - particularly when it's a bit warm and has softened a bit. Consequently I lost a lot of chemicals in the bath.

However, the negatives all came out fine and I would recommend doing it this way if you have a lot of films to do, or only want to mix up a small batch of chemicals, and you have a way of very securely keeping the lid of your tank on.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Freestyle sells the Unicolor kits.

I use a Unicolor base with Jobo tanks. I think I paid $1 for the Unicolor base. There's no reason a Paterson tank wouldn't work on the rotary base, provided you were able to keep it from slipping off as it rotated.

I use Unicolor in a Jobo CPP2 processor.