Old negatives

I acquired about 15 rolls of of negatives from the late 30’s to the mid 40’s. They have been wound up in the original film containers for years. Needless to say they are tightly wound. I am wanting to print some of theses but am afraid to because they might get scratched in the film holder. How can I loosen these up so I can safely print them without damaging them? From what I seen they are from Europe during the war.

If they will unwind and can be inserted in a negative gate, then I would do just that, carefully, without chemically treating them. If loading them in a negative gate is not possible without scratching, I would unroll one roll and seesaw it in water at room temperature. This should take some of the curl out. If not, then add an ounce or two of glycerin. You can find glycerin at the drug store. This chemical and hexalen-glycol are the only ones I know that will to this trick. Hexalen-glycol is otherwise known as antifreeze, the type used in automobiles.

My father left about 20 rolls of developed b/w from his early 50's Navy "experience", rolled 2 or 3 into one of the old aluminum cans. I carefully removed each roll and allowed it to absorb moisture from the air and most relaxed enough to put thru my then enlargers. Took about 4-5 days. If this does not do the trick, Marcus gave you another way. Aloha, Bill

I would agree with Bill and Marcus. Try a 'non-invasive' approach first.

 

Leave the film to relax naturally out of its tightly rolled state.

 

However. Given the age of the film, it might be on a Nitrate base, which is not only highly flammable, but also tends to shrink, distort and become brittle with age.

 

I'll freely admit to having little knowledge of how best to handle cellulose nitrate film. Your best source of expert advice would be a movie-film archivist. I'm sure there must be some good papers published on the web how best to test for, and deal with nitrate-based film.

Hexalen-glycol is otherwise known as antifreeze, the type used in automobiles.

The normal automobile antifreeze is ethylene glycol, hexylene glycol has an extra 4 carbon atoms & 8 hydrogen atoms per molecule.

Despite the extra the boiling points of these two glycols are only about 1°C apart. This is due to much stronger hydrogen bonding in the ethylene glycol.

@ petrochemist - I misspoke! I should have said ethylene glycol. Years ago, the photofinishing industry consisted of giant factory type plants. I designed and was technical manager for 7, each able to develop and print 20,000 rolls of film a day (Eckerd Drugs out of Tampa Bay). In those days, high-speed paper processors terminated with a 6 or 8 feet diameter polished drum. The wet prints were pressure squeegeed, emulsion to polished drum. The heated drum dried the print paper and the paper emulsion, with its gelatin overcoat conformed to surface. This fast dried the wet paper and the emulsion acquired a high gloss. The problem was separating the dried print from the drum. All types of concoctions were tried. A glycerin or ethylene glycol base solution proved best. Paper prints were often sent in to have duplicates made. In those days we made a copy negative and then printed from this negative. Often the incoming old print was badly curled. We would soak in this release agent. They added just enough residual water so the print would lies flat. We had a mechanical print straighter. A jerry-rigged contraction, motor and canvas belt that twisted and re-twisted curled prints till they surrendered. We are taking the 40 years ago, I am retired and 81.

Please don't re-wet the old film without experimenting first with a small piece! Years ago, I made that mistake and watched as the emulsion slid off the film base, completely ruining all the pictures.

 

More recently, I found two rolls of developed but uncut 35mm film tightly wound in Kodak film cans since 1946-47. When I tried unrolling this film, it began crumbling into small pieces. Exposure to mild humidity didn't help. Finally, in desperation, I snipped off a few frames at a time, quickly dipped them in cool water, then immediately inserted them into a modified Nikon ES-1 film holder and copied them with my Nikon DSLR and 40mm macro lens. Working fast, I was able to copy the negatives as they disintegrated. The images appear damaged but are recognizable. Later I found and scanned small prints of them as well.

 

It seems that water and old film don't mix. Also, the old film I found had been stored in terrible conditions -- extreme heat in summer, freezing cold in winter. It's amazing I was able to salvage any images at all.

@ petrochemist - I misspoke! I should have said ethylene glycol. Years ago, the photofinishing industry consisted of giant factory type plants. I designed and was technical manager for 7, each able to develop and print 20,000 rolls of film a day (Eckerd Drugs out of Tampa Bay). In those days, high-speed paper processors terminated with a 6 or 8 feet diameter polished drum. The wet prints were pressure squeegeed, emulsion to polished drum. The heated drum dried the print paper and the paper emulsion, with its gelatin overcoat conformed to surface. This fast dried the wet paper and the emulsion acquired a high gloss. The problem was separating the dried print from the drum. All types of concoctions were tried. A glycerin or ethylene glycol base solution proved best. Paper prints were often sent in to have duplicates made. In those days we made a copy negative and then printed from this negative. Often the incoming old print was badly curled. We would soak in this release agent. They added just enough residual water so the print would lies flat. We had a mechanical print straighter. A jerry-rigged contraction, motor and canvas belt that twisted and re-twisted curled prints till they surrendered. We are taking the 40 years ago, I am retired and 81.

Thanks Alan I suspected ethylene glycol was the one you meant, being much more readily available.

 

I'm sure there will be a wide range of solvents capable of doing the job, but there's no point experimenting with others. Car antifreeze often has additives such as pH buffers & indicator dyes (and isn't always glycol based) so I'd recommend sticking with glycerin if that works :)

I had rolls of my negatives from 40 to 50 years ago in similar sized cardboard tubes.

(The ones that 35mm black and white film came in 40 to 50 years ago.)

 

Last year, I put them in Print-File sheets, then put the sheets in ring binders to flatten.

 

There was one roll that was even tighter rolled than those. I hung that up the same

way I hang newly developed film, with film clips at the bottom as weights, and for a

few days. That helped reduce the curl.

 

The ones in Print-File pages mostly have small enough curl after a while,

though getting them into the strip carriers of scanners is still sometimes no

so easy.