Clean negs

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REOS

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Robin
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I’ve just developed my first roll of film in a very long time. The smell of the stop bath came back to me, but not much else. The negs turned out okay, but I did notice quite a few drying marks (or blobs). This was despite following Ilford’s instructions to the letter, including use of the wetting agent and running two fingers down the roll after hanging it in the shower. The marks don’t appear to have affected the scanning, but I’d like to do a better job next time. Can anyone give me a few tips for clean negs.
 
You seem to have followed the correct steps so far as you've stated, so I'm looking for things you haven't mentioned. Two things spring to mind:

1. Was the final rinse in distilled or deionised water?

2. Did you weight the end of the roll? If you could hang it slightly diagonally, that would help the water drain to the edges.
 
StephenM said:
You seem to have followed the correct steps so far as you've stated, so I'm looking for things you haven't mentioned. Two things spring to mind:

1. Was the final rinse in distilled or deionised water?

2. Did you weight the end of the roll? If you could hang it slightly diagonally, that would help the water drain to the edges.
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I used spring water, which probably isn’t the same thing. I did weight the negs, but will try your tip. The gentleman at Bristol Cameras who sold me the Ilford/Paterson starter kit said he always did a final wipe of the non-emulsion side with a folded piece of kitchen roll, after the two-finger slide, but I felt a bit nervous about doing that.
 
I used to remove the excess water with my two fingers like a squeegee but I’ve stopped doing that because I was constantly getting marks.
I simply hang them straight after taking them out of the film reel.
Just make sure to wash well after fixing because it actually makes a difference.
 
Also I’ve stopped looking at the negs before hanging because the water runs in a different direction and when I hang it doesn’t dry well.
 
Marino said:
Also I’ve stopped looking at the negs before hanging because the water runs in a different direction and when I hang it doesn’t dry well.
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Thanks Marino. I’ll keep these points in mind next time. A relief to know I no longer depend on a lab to meet the FPOY deadlines.
 
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zx9 said:
Too much wetting agent will cause drying marks, you only need a couple of drops of Kodak Photoflo in a Patterson tank. I expect the same to be true for other makes of wetting agent.
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Interesting, thank you. I could well have overdone the Ilford wetting agent this time. Funnily enough Bristol Cameras also recommended Photo-Flo and the implication was that one bottle would be enough to see me out.
 
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I put the reels in a salad spinner and give it a minute or so's spin. I live in a hard water area and, even with photoflo and deionised water for the final rinse, can still get drying marks. The salad spinner means that most of the water is flung off the negs before they are hung to dry and I get far fewer drying marks as a result.
 
Wow, that has to be worth trying. Thanks!
 
Everyone says no but I still use a film squeegee without issues, I'm just careful.
 
Jammy Dodger said:
Everyone says no but I still use a film squeegee without issues, I'm just careful.
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The only prob with squeegee is when the rubber is old, other than that it does an excellent job. Kinda like the cars wipers, when new they’re good but as they get older (harder) they don’t do as a good job
Edit: I've scratched my negs with a used squeegee in the past
 
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So it looks like next time I’m going to use deionised water for the final rinse, leave out the finger/squeegee slide, but hang the negs at an angle. If that doesn’t do the trick then I’ll add in the FishyFish salad spinner. Thank you all.
 
I'll add that I just shake the reel dry to the rhythm of one whole song. We're not posh enough for a salad spinner but it's a similar principle. Problem is I hang it up to dry in my office as Mrs H. gets annoyed by them hanging up anywhere else. Dust. Dust is my nemesis.
 
When I did my developing in the 90's I'd not heard of a salad spinner but I did make an attachment to allow me to use an electric drill to "spin" the Dev reel.

Worked ok for me. Just don't make it too fast.
 
There's always Drysonal... Or an equivalent. An alcohol that will displace the water - or at least dilute it (as an aside, if we have water shortages over the summer, you can always dilute it with whisky) and will then dry rapidly. Drysonal (I still have a bottle) was made by Agfa.
 
I couldn't get clean negs. They always had some level of dust/fibres on them. I dried them in the shower, my thinking being that all the dust will have been washed away. It didn't work. I also got wet marks/blobs.
Now I use a DIY film drier which works very well.... and now I can see the scratches on the negs that I left there or were caused by my camera. Just lately, I see darker bands along the film length that I cannot account for, maybe it's in the film stock. It's all fun, good luck.
 
Cluster said:
Now I use a DIY film drier which works very well...
Click to expand...
For many years I used an old clothes locker that I bought for £2 at an auction. I strung some heavy wire sideways close to the top and had a film drying cabinet.

When we moved back into a smaller house, the old locker had to go but I was lucky enough to come across one of these...

Silvertronic film dryer Ixus 70 IMG_4342.JPG

It can take a 120 or two 35mm films inside the hole. I guess it would be possible to put one or two reels on top of those in the hole but it might be asking for trouble.
 
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