drying 4x5 negs...

[deantaylor]

<p>hello photo.net pros!</p>

<p>please take a moment to clarify: is this the preferred method of drying 4x5 negs (using metal hangars designed for the task)...</p>

<p>

<p>or, are there other means at one's disposal?</p>

<p>thank you!</p>

<p> </p>

[Bill C]

<p>I think that's asking for trouble. I consider those hangers just for processing (including wash); I switch to film clips for drying. They're the same sort of clip you would use to hang a roll of film.</p>

<p>I think the method shown in the video will leave water trapped in the bottom, when it eventually dries I would expect parts of the film (emulsion) to be stuck inside the hanger rails. I'm just guessing - it seems like such a bad idea to me that I've never ever tried it (and never will).</p>

[frank_menesdorfer]

<p>Oh yes, the hangers do just fine. I have used those for many years and frankly I don't know anything else which works better. Now Im using those surgical steel clips and hang the sheets up on one corner. The setbacks are, the hangers require a bit longer time to dry and the surgical clips leaves a marking on one cornetr (like punching a little hole) but the sheets dry faster</p>

[Bill C]

<p>Well, frank is talking from experience and I've never tried it, so... it must work ok. (I still won't do it, though.)</p>

[thirteenthumbs]

<p>I use wooden, spring type, close pins on a 1/8 inch nylon string stretched between two screw eyes in a 1x8 redwood fence board laid across open bi fold closet doors or other support when needed. The wide board keeps the dust off even 135-36 roll film. I clip one corner of the 4x5 in the rebate area and let hang at a 45° angle. </p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>small safety pins poked thry near the corner and hang on a horiznatal stretched wire or string.<br>

this will not hurt the image</p>

[User_5888660]

<p>Dean,</p>

<p>The hangers are designed for processing the negatives in "dip and dunk" tanks. They can be used to dry the negatives after processing. If you don't usually process negatives in hangers, there is no reason to get the hangers just for drying. </p>

<p>I use film clips like Bill. I have used clothes pins also, when I run out of clips. I prefer the plastic clothes pins to wood, however. The wooden ones absorb the water where they contact the corner of the negative and this leaves a mark on the negative. It is not a big deal when enlarging, but the mark can be distracting when contact printing and showing the edges of the film. </p>

[bethe_fisher]

<p>I have a contraption of plastic clothes hangers and binder clips that I can hang from the shower head in my drying cabinet / stall shower. I can hang at an angle and can keep the clip out of the image area. </p>

[thirteenthumbs]

<p>I switched to wood clothes pins when the plastic ones disintegrated in my fingers when hanging some film one day.</p>

[sergio_ortega7]

Use a wetting agent; a quick final rinse helps the negatives dry more evenly and spot-free. I prefer small metal clips placed on the

corners of the sheets, well away from the emulsion, suspended from some sort of line when I do individual tray processing. If you do use the metal

sheet film processing hangers for drying, make sure they are the ones with the small drain holes along the edges. When I use a daylight

tank, like the Combi-Plan plastic tank with the six-sheet rack, I just leave the film to dry in the plastic rack after removing it from the tank.

[Monophoto]

<p>Something to always remember is that negatives are most vulnerable to damage when they are wet - because the emulsion is soft. Therefore, you really want to minimize handling of wet negatives.</p>

<p>Hangers are primarily intended to facilitate processing of negatives in small tanks. They are one of several options that are available for that purpose.</p>

<p>If hangers are used for processing, then it does make sense to leave the negs in the hangers for drying - why switch to some other method if that would require the additional step of removing the processed negs before drying them. </p>

<p>But if you use some other means to process the negs, then it likewise doesn't make sense to have to put wet negs into hangers for the purpose of drying them.</p>

<p>I use plastic clothespins to grip the corner of the negative, and then hang them in a drying cabinet.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>The channel-type hangers shown in the video clip are meant for plates - film will inevitably stick and the outer 5 mm or so all round will be unusable. FILM hangers (with a spring clip at each corner) are fine for drying negs - these hangers have a off-center hook at the top so that they hang at an incline - it will speed drying if you take the film out of the bottom clips before hanging it up to dry. You can hang the negs up by one corner but water will run off less well than in the hangers described above.<br>

PS: Playing Beethoven piano music to the negs as they dry as in the video will not really help!</p>

[ron_taylor3]

<p>Dean..<br>

The video clip shows film holders for processing sheet film in tanks. After soaking the film and holders in photo flow or wetting agent, you should remove the film from the sheet holder and let it hang by one corner to dry, this will allow the wetting agent to drain off the film with an minimum of watermarks and swelling of the emulsion in the image area. It is easy to safely check if the film is completely dry, there will be a drop of liquid on the lowest corner, it will dry off last, if the lowest corner is no longer sticky to the touch the entire sheet is dry. I have always used the stainless clips that have two sets of teeth that grip the film about 1/8" in from the edge. Don't forget to rinse the hangers again to get rid of the wetting agent.<br>

<br />Ron.</p>

[feodordefemina]

<p>+1 for the clothespins. Just dip them in a weak solution of photoflo & hang them. If you use the film hangers they eventually retain a lot of photoflo which will creep back onto the negatives and make the pictures lighter at the edges. Actually a nice effect for 8x10 portraits.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>The video clip shows film holders for processing sheet film in tanks.</em><br>

NO! The video shows hangers for PLATES - they can be used for film, but the film is not held under tension and may bow and get scratched by an adjacent hanger. Moreover, as Feoder says, the plate hangers retain a lot of liquid and, if used for film, render a 5 mm strip all around the edge of the film unusable.<br>

This is a film hanger:<br>

</p><div></div>

[photojim]

<p>I may be low-tech but I find that clothespins work fine. I grab the smallest amount of the sheet's corner that I can that will hold the sheet securely. I find there's enough unexposed margin on at least one corner that this works alright. No problems with film falling yet. :) Just make sure you use good clothespins, not super-worn ones that are loose.<br>

<br />Clothespins work for roll film too - I prefer the Paterson clips but when I do too much film and run out of clips, two clothespins on the top and four on the bottom (for weight) work well enough.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>... clothespins work fine ...</em><br>

They work for sure, but the area of their jaws is much larger than a film clip, thus leaving a bigger mark, and so is their potential for holding liquid, which then runs in a perfect diagonal across your negatives!</p>

[steve_mareno1]

<p>I use those wide clips that people use for paper binders. Like these.</p>

<p>http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/808865/OIC-Medium-Binder-Clips-1-14/?Channel=Google&mr:trackingCode=14086F1B-EC81-DE11-B7F3-0019B9C043EB&mr:referralID=NA&mr:adType=pla&mr:ad=29861641676&mr:keyword=&mr:match=&mr:filter=56583837596&cm_mmc=Mercent-_-Googlepla-_-Office_Supplies+Basic_Supplies-_-808865</p>

<p>They're tied w/ a piece of yarn to a coat hanger, and I usually tie three to a hanger, and place the hanger over the shower pipe to dry. Barely leaves a mark, and they hold like crazy. Because they're metal, you can clamp the film w/ just a little tip of the clip and still have a firm hold on it. Cheap too. For roll film, I have clips w/ a little bolt tied to them for weight, and clip them to the other end of the roll.</p>