Washing fibre paper

marciofs · Sep 12, 2015

What method is the most water economical I can use?

miha · Sep 12, 2015

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/assets/20154231237291446.pdf

marciofs · Sep 13, 2015

miha said:
http://www.ilfordphoto.com/assets/20154231237291446.pdf

Five minutes on running water per print is a lot of water.

David Allen · Sep 13, 2015

marciofs said:
Five minutes on running water per print is a lot of water.

I am afraid that, if you wish to use fibre paper, there is no way around the need for the consumption of water.

Wash Aid, Hypo Clear, Perma Wash, etc will all help reduce the washing time and as Ilford state themselves "The use of an Archival print washer containing discrete slots for the paper will increase wash efficiency further and will allow a reduced flow rate than for example in a sink or tray".

If you want to really understand print washing, read this article by Martin Reed:

http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=296#content_start

There are so many variables with print washing (including how archival you want your prints to be, how long the print is in the Hypo, the nature of your tap water, etc) that the best advice is to do some tests using differing methods and times and checking with a Hypo test solution such as this:

http://www.fotofachversand.com/Fotospeed-Residual-Hypo-Test-50ml_1

The other solution is to find somewhere where there is no water meter. My darkroom is in a listed building and they are not allowed to install water meters. The downside is that I have to change my inline water filters very often as the water pipes deliver a lot of iron and debris in the tap water.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

Rick A · Sep 13, 2015

marciofs said:
Five minutes on running water per print is a lot of water.

It shouldn't be if the flow rate is equal to 12 changes per hour, and you aren't using a deep tank to wash. I use a shallow tray with a home made spray bar at one end and small drain holes at the other end. Slower moving water has more time to pick up the chemical residue and move it away from the print. In my instance, this equals about 12 liters per hour of wash time.

Slixtiesix · Sep 13, 2015

Washing times can be reduced significantly by using a neutral fixer. I use Rollei RXN. Hartmuth Schröder, the director of Maco (who do produce the Rollei chemicals), recommended on a German forum to wash the prints in a tray and change the water every 2 minutes. 8 changes should suffice according to him. I use 10 changes just to be on the safe side.

RalphLambrecht · Sep 13, 2015

marciofs said:
Five minutes on running water per print is a lot of water.

I use an Eco print washerwith which I can wash up to 5 prints at a time with running water for 30 minutes

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 13, 2015

I'm in California where there is a drought. I don't over fix, use hypo clear and recent got rid of my Arkay tumbling print washer and bought a used slotted archival print washer.

miha · Sep 13, 2015

Slixtiesix said:
Washing times can be reduced significantly by using a neutral fixer. I use Rollei RXN. Hartmuth Schröder, the director of Maco (who do produce the Rollei chemicals), recommended on a German forum to wash the prints in a tray and change the water every 2 minutes. 8 changes should suffice according to him. I use 10 changes just to be on the safe side.

8 litres of water per print and quite labour intensive: http://www.maco-photo.de/files/images/MACO_ecomat_TA_08_dt.pdf

Slixtiesix · Sep 13, 2015

Thank you! Nice to see this in an official document. I don´t care about the labour intensity since I do only a few prints every time I´m in the darkroom. And it is perfect if you need to save water. I use a soda bath as well, forgot to mention that in my previous post!

miha · Sep 13, 2015

Did you test for residual fixer?

Slixtiesix · Sep 13, 2015

Unfortunately not so far. Someone on a German forum did it and he confirmed that 8 changes á 2 minutes were safe. I will do a test myself as soon as I have the chance...

Sirius Glass · Sep 13, 2015

I am in California so I use hypo clearing agent and a print washer.

marciofs · Sep 13, 2015

Well... For people like me who prefer to simplify things, it would be better to use RC peaper and forget Fibre papers then, Right?

RC perper may be less archival but poor Fibre paper are even less archival.

Does it makes any diference with selenioum bath?

Maris · Sep 13, 2015

I've just come out of the darkroom and my Paterson Major archival washer is burbling away with 25 fibre base 8x10s in it. The photographs got a soak in Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent so a 45 minute constant agitation wash will be archival. The water flow rate is pretty exactly 1 litre per minute (= 45 litres in 45 minutes) and the local water company will eventually bill me 16 cents for the complete wash. I shouldn't complain.

Peter Schrager · Sep 13, 2015

30 minutes in the ecowash..
5 minutes in hypo clear shuffle in a tray
40 more minutes in ecowash
These washers use a very low flow rate..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 14, 2015

I have one too

Maris said:
I've just come out of the darkroom and my Paterson Major archival washer is burbling away with 25 fibre base 8x10s in it. The photographs got a soak in Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent so a 45 minute constant agitation wash will be archival. The water flow rate is pretty exactly 1 litre per minute (= 45 litres in 45 minutes) and the local water company will eventually bill me 16 cents for the complete wash. I shouldn't complain.

Mine will only hold about a dozen. Do you wash your prints back to back? Is that an archival method?

RalphLambrecht · Sep 14, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Mine will only hold about a dozen. Do you wash your prints back to back? Is that an archival method?

I don't wash back-to-back and don't consider it archival due to waterflow restrictions.I prefer to run the washer twice

Maris · Sep 14, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Mine will only hold about a dozen. Do you wash your prints back to back? Is that an archival method?

My Paterson Major washer will take two rows of 12 8"x10" photographs set vertically in the slots at opposite ends of its basket. The photographs touch lightly edge to edge in the middle of the basket but there is no surface to surface contact to hinder a clean wash. The extra photograph, number 25, went into the tank outside the basket where the agitating action of this washer had it moving about freely for the full 45 minute duration of the wash.

I've used this loading method with this washer since the 1970s when I did the residual hypo tests to confirm everything was ok. The fibre base photographs from that era are still immaculate; not so with some RC base material that shows minor silvering-out. But that's another story.

Washing fibre paper

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency