So my son has a rock tumbler, can I use it as a rotary base?

[Katie]

I've been eyeballing some c41 chems that use variable temps, and the idea of continuous agitation isn't appealing to me. Say I have a rotary rock tumbler and I manage to fit a dev tank in it - can I use this as a rotary base or are the Rpm's really specific to film rotary bases?

 

[Photo Engineer]

The best rotary bases oscillate back and forth to prevent streaking from taking place.

PE

 

[Terry Christian]

Katie, if you do find that you can get a tank into the rock tumbler, you'll want to pick up the tank and rock it back and forth a couple of times by hand every couple of minutes, just to add some variety to the agitation and help prevent the streaks that P.E. mentioned. RPMs shouldn't matter, only the fact that the dev is constantly on the move. If you dev B&W in it, subtract about 15% from the dev time.

 

[johnielvis]

hey--rock tumbler--if it rotates the tanks, it should work as far as I know--only one way to find out, right--go for it--I'd do it the lazy way first without messing with rocking it---(rocking it--rock tumbler..interesting) anyways--if you have to manually mess with it, then there's no difference from totally manual processing/agitatoion in my opinion--try it on 100% automatic...if it works hey--if it don't...then you know...as long as the rotation isn't TOO slow, it should be fine--and you can use 1/2 the chemicals of a full tank (for cylindircal tanks) for rotary processing--that's all I do now for the reels in the tanks--put them on the side, put chems in to 1/2 full and let it roll.

 

[Neal]

Dear Katie,

If it's something you just want to try for fun, doing it by hand once or twice isn't that difficult. The Arista kit doesn't even require continuous agitation. If you want to do a lot of it you're going to end up investing in a processor with temperature controls.

Neal Wydra

 

[EASmithV]

I took my base and made it go a single way... The reversing didn't grip as well on the reverse and sometimes it stuck...