Stop Bath.. How important?

The only time I remove film from reels is if I am using Jobo reels.

 

Every time I did immersion slowly with hangars, I would get trails of undeveloped area from hangar hole area on the bottom. Slower the immersion, worse the problem. Smash it down in less than 2 sec, problem goes away never to return.
I special ordered a hangar rack from Arkay. Six or 8 hangars fit and film does not touch. Only one handle to deal with. Again smash it down.

 

unorthodox is good
i'm glad to read you solved your problem !

 

Why hot water? Does it remove the "photoflo" faster and more completely than cold water?

 

Hot water removes any residue of gelatin faster and more completely - maybe photoflo as well.

 

Hot water is better at cleaning the reels. Periodically I will give the reels an overnight soak in a weak sodium carbonate solution and then a brief rinse.

 

I do not soak my film in PhotoFlo while on the reels. I am too lazy to wash the reels that well. And I love see-sawing my film thru a bowl of PhotoFlo -- for no better reason than I've been doing it that way since '77.

 

Once I started using a Jobo processor I put PhotoFlo in a plastic bowl and put roll film loosely wound or sheet film into the bowl and slowly move it around for a couple of minutes since Jobo publishes not to put their reels in PhotoFlo.

 

Do you fill the tank almost completely, every time, regardless of the number of rolls? Do you fill the tank with an empty reel if you have only one roll to process?

 

Yes to both

 

bump - Can the stop bath be any sort of acid solution as long as it is approximately the same ph as "standard" stop bath?

 

Probably yes, but not all acid solutions have the same buffering capacity, in other words the ability to keep their pH relatively stable after use. Acetic and citric acid have good characteristics in this regard, they are cheap and quite safe to use. Overall, they are the typical choices for good reasons.

 

In theory it could, a weak Sulphuric acid stop bath was used in some B&W reversal processes but the following step the reversal bleach also contained Sulphuric acid. I definitely wouldn't recommend using Sulphuric acid though.

In practice the cheapest and most readily available acids are Acetic Acid and Citric acid you can get white (clear) distilled vinegar in any food supermarket and citric acid in some stores as well.

Ian

 

Well we only lost the OP to Photrio 18 months ago( lost may be a little strong but that was his last visit) which isn't bad considering his thread has run since 2005 . I wonder when we gave him an answer that satisfied him? I haven't the will to plough through 530+ responses to check if we satisfied him and when. It may remain a mystery for all times.

I have signed on as a crew member on the Marie Celeste. I promise to keep you informed of events to the end

pentaxuser

 

You just gave me an idea. I am going to name my darkroom "The Mary Celeste". It is sitting there with chemicals mixed, tanks ready, enlargers clean, ready to go with no-one going in and using it.. That will be the perfect name.......Regards!

 

ROTFLMAO, sounds like me.

 

Actually, this thread is a good one to keep reviving and posting to.
And I'm disappointed to see that the OP hasn't been posting or been here since last year - he was always a contributor.

 

So my situation was this: I was in the middle of developing an important roll of Tri X when I realized that the bottle of stop bath concentrate was empty. I substituted a dilution of my own pee and water. 2/3rds water. Pee to make 400ml. The roll came out fine but I had to wash it a bit longer. The film kind of smelled like asparagus (the vegetable component of dinner that night).

 

Hi Matt,

I'm actually the OP. My old email addy went kaput and I created a new email address which I used to create this login a few days ago. I have no idea what my old password is and phototrio was prolly sending a password reset to an email address that has long since been superceeded… and I don't even know the password to that msn account.

- John

 

Hahaha that's brilliant!

 

Hi John - glad to see that you haven't disappeared!
I'm sure Sean could merge your identities, leaving you with a single posting history, under either screen name.
I'll "report" this post - most likely you will hear from Sean.

 

John, I could never figure out why there is so much consternation about whether to use nor not to use stop bath. I solve that dilemma simply (and without using pee). I simply dilute to the extreme and always use only 'one shot'. For glacial acetic I use only 2.5mL per liter of water. For, say 28%, I use 2.5 / 0.28 = about 9mL in one liter. NOTE: Kodak Indicator is about 90% the potency of the glacial so use about 3mL (2.5 / 0.9) per liter. No problems whatsoever and no fears of ever blistering. Development is stopped immediately. One shot only. - David Lyga (now excuse me while I go to pee.)

 

Indicator stop bath is NOT glacial acetic acid, here's the quote from authority.

... for the longest time I considered Indicator to be the SAME potency as glacial. Then I actually did the math, backing into the actual percentage by using the recommended amounts to make a liter, as told by Kodak. - David Lyga​

 

I find that its potency is roughly 90% of the glacial. What its specific constituents are I do not know, but its potency is roughly 90% of the glacial. It is VERY strong. - David Lyga