What do I use to clean glue residues off my old 35mm print film negatives?

[louise bridge]

I recently got from my mother her old 35mm Kodak color print film negatives of

various types from 1970's onwards. I want to put them in PrintFile archival

sleeves in order to scan them to make digital "contact sheets".

 

What do I do about the various handlers' edgings glued to those favorite

negatives that went back to the film lab when reprints were ordered? The

negatives do not fit into the 35mm plastic sleeves with these edgings on them,

but the lab's edgings have been glued to the negatives.

 

I will have to clean the residues left by the adhesives off the negatives or

else they will come off inside the plastic sleeves and get all over the

negatives.

 

What do I use to clean glue residues off my old 35mm print film negatives?

[bob_sunley]

Try Ronsonol lighter fluid, or isopropyl alcohol. Wet the glue and let it soften. One or the other should work depending on the type of adhesive. Neither will hurt the negative. Old Kodak film cleaner works too, but it is long gone from the marketplace.

 

Have you tried peeling the edge off. Test the glue on that first.

 

Or you could just trim the edge unless the glue has gone all gummy.

[kerry_bannen]

At my lab we always used PEC-12,

 

http://www.adorama.com/CHPEC12.html?sid=1203545540465919

 

it gets EVERYTHING off. Great for fingerprints too.

[bob_sunley]

Well PEC-12 has a trade secret designation listing for it's ingredients on it's MSDS, but it sure looks like an alcohol, seeing as water is recommended for dispersal of large spills. At $54 for a quart, that is bloody expensive. Try about $3 or so for a pint of 99% isopropyl alcohol at the local drug store.

[thirteenthumbs]

Save the Ronsonol for lighting your coffin nails. The petroleum distillates may disolve the film base over a long peroid of time and it is not water soluble.<br>

Try <a href=http://www.krudkutter.com/> Krud Kutter </a> available at hardware stores or <a href=http://www.liftoffinc.com/product-tape-remover.php> Lift Off #2 </a> also available at hardware stores. I have used both products. They do a good job of removing adhesives, do not damage surfaces or finishes, and both are water soluble. I recomend washing the film after treating with any adhesive remover. Wet film emulsion is easily damaged, handle the film carefully.

[louise bridge]

My goodness, thank you all very much.

 

I am intrigued that absolutely no one has suggested I simply leave the handlers' edgings attached to the negatives--after all, they do stop me from getting my fingerprints all over the place too, just like they made things more convenient for the photo lab employees. But some of the edgings are falling off and definitely the adhesive residues are messy. Also I figure the little sprocket-hole type perforations along the sides of the edgings no longer fit whatever equipment they were designed to fit at the time.

 

Nor has anyone so far has advocated that I use some method other than those PrintFile "archival" quality plastic sleeve pages for storing my old 35mm negatives.

 

But those are questions I did not ask and this is an amazing on-line community in which, from what I have observed, mostly participants in the more technical forums recognize and address precisely the topic specified and avoid tangents. That is a rare thing, I believe.

 

I expect that the specifically photographic fluids suggested will come with directions as to how to apply and with what to apply, how to proceed next, etc. Also I have searched and will continue to search this site for further instruction about how to procede in using such liquids for this purpose, etc.

 

But, if anyone else wants to offer more advice, I would be very grateful.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

I've worked in prepress back in the '80's using waxes, bestine solvent, rubber cement and

3M scotchtape around graphics camera's, darkroom film and light tables and now a

flatbed scannner.

 

Take it from me-get rid of the adhesive no matter what because once it's on your fingers

or if it ever rubs up against another surface, the crosscontamination it can create will have

you working your ass off constantly cleaning and/or editing in Photoshop. It's darn near

impossible to know when or if it this has happened. And once it does fingerprints and dust

just show up in the most unlikely places you thought were clean or had been cleaned.

 

Adhesive is HELL in the field of image capture.

[bob_sunley]

Charles Monday, Feb 21, 2008; 01:55 a.m.

 

"Save the Ronsonol for lighting your coffin nails. The petroleum distillates may disolve the film base over a long peroid of time and it is not water soluble."

 

Why do you want a water soluble cleaning solvent for anyways?

 

See:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/hse/solvent.jhtml

 

Kodak have a list of solvents, seems ispropyl alcohol(isopropanol) and naptha (Ronsonol) are both just fine thank you.

[michael_briggs2]

Kodak has s publication on cleaning photographic materials. Their recommendation is isopropyl alcohol of purity 98% or better. See publication CIS-145, "Recommendations for Cleaning Photographic Materials", at http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/cis145/cis145.shtml. I don't know how well it will work on this glue, but I'd try isopropyl alcohol first. In general you want to avoid water with old photographic materials because sometimes they deteriorate in ways that they become subject to damage by water.

[thirteenthumbs]

Louise, Michael's posted link is more approiate for print film and has some good directions for cleaning the film. Using a water based cleaner may require rewashing the film and treating in stablizer used in the final step of processing. I tend to go with the least toxic means I can find.

[vibin247]

I use Static-B-Gone Film Cleaner by Accessory Research. Cleans off finger smudges,

adhesives, tar, and pretty much any surface dirt that hasn't fully adhered to the base or

emulsion.