cleaning negs after processing

positivenote

HI all,
one for the darkroom enthusiast ... after years of processing my own B/W 35mm film, im struggling to get my negs chemical stain free in the wash... anyone recommend anything? my current process is to wash in the processing tanks for 15-20mins under a running tap. Following this small drop of Photo-Flo and then continue wash for a further 5 mins under running water. But when the negs dry I can still see water/chemical ,arks...
thanks a million

ps: can i rewash negs ?

DaireQuinlan

positivenote wrote: »

HI all,
one for the darkroom enthusiast ... after years of processing my own B/W 35mm film, im struggling to get my negs chemical stain free in the wash... anyone recommend anything? my current process is to wash in the processing tanks for 15-20mins under a running tap. Following this small drop of Photo-Flo and then continue wash for a further 5 mins under running water. But when the negs dry I can still see water/chemical ,arks...
thanks a million

ps: can i rewash negs ?

You can rewash all right. Generally though your final soak should be in your photo-flo mix. I give mine the ilford rinse after fix and then soak in a tank of water w/ ilfotol, or photoflo or whatever you have handy. I've used washing up liquid before :-D Make it up with distilled water and you should be grand, it's probably just stains from chemicals in the water which are leaving drying marks.

Cleaning them afterward the best thing to use is just isopropyl alcohol, quick swipe and you're good to go. In general I find the drying marks tend to appear on the non-emulsion side anyway.

thefizz

15 to 20 minutes of washing is very long and a waste of water, check out the Ilford method.

As Daire said, the wetting agent should be used as a final rinse, do not continue washing afterwards.

amdgilmore

A five minute rinse after adding a drop of photoflo is probably just removing all the photoflo!

After the wash, I generally add a couple of drops of photoflo, put the cap back on the tank, give it five inversions, pour it out, add clean water, 5-10 more inversions and then hang the film to dry. I don't know if it's best practice but I almost never see drying marks.

DaireQuinlan

amdgilmore wrote: »

A five minute rinse after adding a drop of photoflo is probably just removing all the photoflo!

After the wash, I generally add a couple of drops of photoflo, put the cap back on the tank, give it five inversions, pour it out, add clean water, 5-10 more inversions and then hang the film to dry. I don't know if it's best practice but I almost never see drying marks.

there's little point in using a wetting agent and then washing it out in a subsequent rinse, it should be the last soak you give the film. If your water is fairly soft chances are you won't see much of a problem with drying marks anyhow.

amdgilmore

I used to do it like that when I first started but I found the negatives would sometimes come out quite sticky and greasy.

The final rinse still has photoflo in solution - just less of it. Maybe I should invest in a more precise measurement tool, but in the meantime this is what's working for me.