Trying to recover Kodachrome X and Kodacolor II as B&W- 2 failures

[J_Pie_Phot]

Hello! New to this forum and I'm not a native English speaker. That being said...

I got two color films from eBay 35mm classic cameras: Kodacolor II from the early 1970's and Kodachrome X from the late 1960's. I managed to rewind the films back into their cassettes before opening the backs.
Important detail: both felt like maybe 5 to 10 frames were exposed on each; These cameras came from different locations in the US.
I tried to recover the images by developing films separately in D-76 as B&W. Before doing so I did extensive reading on similar experiences, many of which were reported on this forum (thank you all for sharing what you've done).
- I knew about dense orange mask on C-41 negative but in case of success the images would be scannable;
- I knew about the Remjet removal difficulties on K-12 Kodachrome but in case of success I would have almost classic B&W negatives;

After development the films came out black... However, when viewing them against a strong light source I can see faint frame dividers on both. I don't know if it's my failure or not but the end result is I failed to recover the films.
I haven't tried to scan them yet but I see no hints of images on either film when viewing against the light source. Yes, I can repeat that faint traces of frame dividers can be noticed but nothing looks like recoverable images in between them.

What bothers me and I feel it could be my failure in developing procedure is that the films are uniformly black even in the "unexposed" portion on each film - from start to end. Faint frame dividers do run around 5 to 7 frames of the exposed portion on either film as I would correctly guessed initially.

Developer for both: stock solution of D-76.
- Kodachrome... 15 mins (according to numerous recommendations)
- Kodacolor... around 13 mins (according to only a few recommendations)

Remjet on Kodachrome: I tried to do my best and I think I managed to buff it off the base after additional alkaline bath. Some black stuff was removed (can't say for sure how much and if it was all that was there) but it stopped buffing off at some point.

 

[cmacd123]

some colour negative has a a silver anti-halo layer under the enuslion. this would be removed by the Bleach, leaving the colour dyes formed by the colour developer. If you have an image it does not have any dyes, so bleach would take out your image.

 

[removed account4]

Hi

You might also be dealing with color film from suspect provenance/storage. 50+ years is a long time for color / chrome film to stay
in condition that reveals good results without problems. As Charles suggested bleach might be helpful I know of people who used to use
household bleach ( against advisement of others that it might damage the film ) to remove density AH layers and orange/yellow masks.

Good luck !
John

 

[J_Pie_Phot]

I see what you mean but in those reports of successful development of either Kodachrome X or Kodacolor II they were acceptable without bleaching. Just normal cross-processing in D-76 and they were OK to scan.
I understand that a 50 years old film cannot guarantee it has survived well over the years and I was prepared for a fail but I was nevertheless hoping for a better result.

 

[removed account4]

no need to give up just yet
I have some regular black and white film that is so dense you can't see through it but it contact prints really well. if you are able to
put the film in contact print pages. use RC paper and a 300 watt light bulb ( that's what I use, an enlarger bulb won't work )
and see what happens -you might be pleasantly surprised. ... then you can scan your images to them to make them look like you want.

 

[J_Pie_Phot]

I'll try to scan them at the end of this week when I get some spare time. Maybe there are some faint remainders of the images, who knows.

 

[pentaxuser]

Unless light has got into the films at some time before the OP tried to develop them then if they are now black from the use of b&w developer what might explain this other than a lot of overexposure during the original taking of the film which D76 has made "bullet-proof so that as jnantz has said there might well be an image there which requires a massive blast of light to enable any kind of a print?

pentaxuser