advice re: sheet film in JOBO

[joel_pickford1]

I finally broke down and bought a JOBO CPP-2 with expert drums for my 5x7 sheet film and am in the midst of doing new zone system tests. I have a few questions for experienced JOBO/sheetfilm users:

 

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1. The manual says to use a rotary speed of 4 for the 3006 drum. Do I dare slow it down? 4 seems awfully fast and my times are running a little on the short side.

 

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2. The manual says to use a 5-minute pre-soak. This seems like unecessary wet time to me, since I have always used a 1-minute pre-soak.

 

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3. Any drum leveling tips? I find that when I level it, take it off the lift mechanism, then put it back on, the level has changed...

 

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Any other tips from experienced users would be greatly appreciated.

[peter_thoshinsky]

Buy the foot pump to open the expert drums. When you use it keep your

chin out of the way or visit a dentist and an orthopedidic surgeon to

have your broken jaw fixed.

 

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Refill the individual slots with water when done in order to "float"

out the film.

 

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One idea to overcome the level problem is to use an extra amount of

chemestry because the real danger is one area not being touched by

the chemical.

 

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I had excellent consistant results with TMAX 100 and the Jobo. Never

scratched a single one.

[joel_pickford1]

Thanks, Peter. Since posting my query, I've gotten the JOBO running

smoothly with excellent results. The problem I was having turned out

to have an amusing solution. It turned out that the manual

incorrectly specified inserting 5x7 sheets with the 7" dimension

straight and the 5" dimension curved around the wall of the cylinder

(all other formats go in this way). The tech support guy at JOBO had

quite a laugh when he figured out on his own that it needed to go in

the other way around (with the 7" dimension curved around the

cylinder).