Water marks, scratches, handling problem?

[mauro35]

The what in your town may have become harder for some reason (problably for a short time) without you know and hard water scratch and leave marks on film.

Seems like that might be the case. I did not have so much troubles in the past as very recently.

 

[bdial]

One of the towns near here switches to different wells in various parts of the year. One well has a high iron content which plays havoc with developers.

 

[brian steinberger]

(there was a url link here which no longer exists) is a thread of mine that may shed more light on the subject.

I may add this from my experience with processing with very hard water:

When you do get drying marks, soak the film in normal strength stop bath for 2-3 minutes, then wash for 5 minutes. Works great.

I find Ilford films (120) much less finicky when it comes to drying marks than Kodak. I love Tri-x but it gives me fits sometimes. Just when I think I have it figured out I get marks. My latest final steps to success with Tri-x 120 has been to soak the film in distilled water for 4 minutes after the final wash as Doremus suggests, then into photo-flo mixed per Kodak's instructions, then hang up and cut the film in half, hang both halves and wipe lightly with PEC pads once on each side. This has given me perfect Tri-x negatives SO FAR. As for Ilford films, 6 drops of photo-flo in distilled water after final wash, hang and squeegee with fingers, spotless negs!

Everyone's got their own water hardness levels and ways they do things and that leads to these different techniques. One might be able to make a film squeegee work for them while another may not. It's important to determine what works for you, and it may take alot of trial and error as it did for me! I've never heard of another fellow APUGer needing to give Ilford and Kodak films different final treatments, but its what I have to do to get good clean results.

 

[Xmas]

(there was a url link here which no longer exists) is a thread of mine that may shed more light on the subject.

I may add this from my experience with processing with very hard water:

When you do get drying marks, soak the film in normal strength stop bath for 2-3 minutes, then wash for 5 minutes. Works great.

I find Ilford films (120) much less finicky when it comes to drying marks than Kodak. I love Tri-x but it gives me fits sometimes. Just when I think I have it figured out I get marks. My latest final steps to success with Tri-x 120 has been to soak the film in distilled water for 4 minutes after the final wash as Doremus suggests, then into photo-flo mixed per Kodak's instructions, then hang up and cut the film in half, hang both halves and wipe lightly with PEC pads once on each side. This has given me perfect Tri-x negatives SO FAR. As for Ilford films, 6 drops of photo-flo in distilled water after final wash, hang and squeegee with fingers, spotless negs!

Everyone's got their own water hardness levels and ways they do things and that leads to these different techniques. One might be able to make a film squeegee work for them while another may not. It's important to determine what works for you, and it may take alot of trial and error as it did for me! I've never heard of another fellow APUGer needing to give Ilford and Kodak films different final treatments, but its what I have to do to get good clean results.

ok my chum a fellow APUG member has the same problem/ similar problem - ie only with Tri-X... he is not online often...

 

[brian steinberger]

ok my chum a fellow APUG member has the same problem/ similar problem - ie only with Tri-X... he is not online often...

I would love to hear the details.