yet another steel tank question, but about agitation

[removedacct2]

so, there are gazillions of discussions about the merits of steel vs plastic developing reels and tanks...

mine question here is not about convenience with loading, durability and quality but about agitation.

The point is that I am used to Paterson Super System 4 because they are easy to adapt for constant agitation. For BW and C41 I use the same setting, totally reproducible, like this:





I have spotted some Kindermann tanks for sale cheap. I was thinking I could try one. The smallest one for 1x 120 roll for instance. C-41 development is easy, what is tricky or rather said, offering lot of latitude is BW, you can play with time/agitation for different results. A 1x roll Kindermann can be interesting when I have only a roll of BW I want to play with.

Otherwise, in the general standart case and for C-41, my constant agitation small device works well. But then, as I see it, there's no simple way to do something similar with all steel tanks, because none has a design allowing for an agitation rod (ie. light tight of course). I am right there or they are things I don't know?

 

[MattKing]

Here is what I used when I played with this:

It worked similarly with all steel tanks, as long as I added a rubber band to keep the lid on. It made such a racket though that I preferred the plastic tank.
I only tried this with black and white.

 

[removedacct2]

well I was considering an old Ilford/Cibachrome roller (or make my own roller) but for C41, temperature is important. Easy when the tank stays all the time in a sink regulated by a sous-vide circulator, which is my setting. The Paterson Super System is good for that:

for BW there are so many combinations of developer/emulsion/wanted effect....
I use very often HC-110 in H dilution (half of B), so depending the emulsion and iso, it's from 7 to 13 mn in constant agitation with that device of mine. I won't stand by with a timer in order to do an inversion every minute or so.... I guess steel tanks are not for me then.

what could be good is a combo of thick steel spirals with Paterson (or AP') cores and tanks. Hewes in UK makes them:
https://www.speedgraphic.co.uk/film...core_for_paterson_jobo_tanks_120/29200_p.html
but then i doubt they will friction-stick enough against the core like the plastic ones, in order to rotate...

 

[reddesert]

Steel tanks are designed to make inversion agitation work well and people who used them typically would invert them every 30 seconds or a minute during development. It's not that bad really.

I started with a plastic tank that could not be inverted - you had to agitate it by turning the center stick (which had a cheesy thermometer). Steel tanks were a big step up.