Homemade film washers and dryers

[francois_brahic]

Hi!

 

I am a student in Design at Stanford, and an avid photographer. I

will be making a presentation in a few days about the way

people wash and dry film when processing at home or on the

road.

 

If you could email me pictures of any devices you might have

constructed to wash and/or dry film, along with a brief

description, I would be most grateful.

 

Please send files to fbrahic@stanford.edu . They don't need to

be high resolution or high quality.

 

Thanks for any help you may provide!

 

Francois

[lex_jenkins]

You can use mine for comic relief.

 

After a quick rinse in an open tray fiber prints go into hypo clearing agent for a minute or two. Then into the print washer.

 

My print washer is a five gallon mop bucket with an aquarium pump to recirculate the water. How often I dump and refill the water depends on whether I'm washing RC or fiber prints and how many of each. As I produce more fiber prints I plan to add another one or two buckets and pumps, moving prints forward in the line every 15-30 minutes.

 

Since I rarely print larger than 11x14 this method works fine.

 

I hang RC prints to dry from the shower rod (my darkroom is the spare bathroom/laundry room). Fiber prints I squeegee against the large bathroom mirror and dry on a ferrotype dryer, flipping the prints once or twice to help minimize curling. I tried the blotter, paper towel, whatever, method under books but it was actually more hassle than the ferrotype dryer.

 

Negatives, I wash using the standard Ilford archival method. Basically, leave the negs on the reels, fill the tank with water, agitate thoroughly, dump, repeat three or four times. I use a one-gallon pitcher of filtered water to rinse - when the pitcher is empty the washing is done.

 

Final rinse in Photo-Flo and distilled water (my own secret blend).

 

Now, the most important and slightly tricky bit...

 

I stretch the negatives diagonally from the shower rod. If my secret sauce of Photo-Flo and distilled water was correctly blended the liquid will flow off in sheets downward along the low edge, leaving almost no little orphaned droplets behind to make spots.

 

As I said, only if you need comic relief...

[lex_jenkins]

You can use mine for comic relief.

 

After a quick rinse in an open tray fiber prints go into hypo clearing agent for a minute or two. Then into the print washer.

 

My print washer is a five gallon mop bucket with an aquarium pump to recirculate the water. How often I dump and refill the water depends on whether I'm washing RC or fiber prints and how many of each. As I produce more fiber prints I plan to add another one or two buckets and pumps, moving prints forward in the line every 15-30 minutes.

 

Since I rarely print larger than 11x14 this method works fine.

 

I hang RC prints to dry from the shower rod (my darkroom is the spare bathroom/laundry room). Fiber prints I squeegee against the large bathroom mirror and dry on a ferrotype dryer, flipping the prints once or twice to help minimize curling. I tried the blotter, paper towel, whatever, method under books but it was actually more hassle than the ferrotype dryer.

 

Negatives, I wash using the standard Ilford archival method. Basically, leave the negs on the reels, fill the tank with water, agitate thoroughly, dump, repeat three or four times. I use a one-gallon pitcher of filtered water to rinse - when the pitcher is empty the washing is done.

 

Final rinse in Photo-Flo and distilled water (my own secret blend).

 

Now, the most important and slightly tricky bit...

 

I stretch the negatives diagonally from the shower rod. If my secret sauce of Photo-Flo and distilled water was correctly blended the liquid will flow off in sheets downward along the low edge, leaving almost no little orphaned droplets behind to make spots.

 

An air filter in the bathroom circulates the air enough to dry film in less than two hours.

 

As I said, only if you need comic relief...

[trooper]

A pretty common film washer was made from PVC plumbing pipe with the bottom capped by a flaired end piece. Holes were drilled along the bottom perimeter to allow the proper drain speed so that when water was added from the top, it would remain level and the hypo would drift downward and out. I built one once and it's likely around here somewhere. It worked quite well but I spurged on a Zone IV when they began making their first units and continue to use the commercial one.

[James G. Dainis]

You don't need to construct anything to wash film on the road. That's what toilet bowls are for.

[darin_cozine]

For washing 35mm film i just leave the spool in the developing tank with the lid off. I place the tank in the sink and run water into the center.

 

If you want to use distilled water, just get one of the 3 gallon jugs with a spigot in the botom. Place the jug on the counter with the spigot over the edge into the sink. Position the tank so that the water flows into it. Be sure to make a pencil-sized hole in the top of the jug. Empty the proccessing tank about 5 times.

[jim_a]

Right now I wash film but just filling the tank and emptying it for a few minutes,

followed by a few minutes in Perma Wash, then a few more minutes emptying and

filling the tank with running water. Eventually I would like to find/build a good film

washer.<P>

I use a few drops of photo-flo in distilled water. I dry my film on the reels but first

reverse roll them before drying so the emulsion side is facing outward.

That way the film comes off the reel virtually flat, making it ideal for scanning in the

holder. When I hung my film in the shower stall with weighted clips the film dried with

a bow in it that made the film hard to seat in the film scanner holder.<P>

 

My film dryer is a clothes dryer exhaust vent with a computer fan for airflow. Atop the

fan is an air filter. To power the fan I use a 12V adapter from Radio Shack so I can

power the fan from an outlet. A coat

hanger slides into two holes I drilled into the metal tube to hold the film while

drying.<P>

 

The dryer is in my bathroom closet which I close when drying the film.

[scott_walton2]

For a film dryer that worked great and folded flat, I used a garmet bag with a

hair dryer in the top. These are the ones that you buy at Walmart/Kmart that

have a clear front with zipper the full length. Poke a few holes in the bottom to

let the air flow out and your film will be dry in minutes...

[frank.schifano]

For a real laugh imagine this. Get a 3 pound coffee can, drill a few holes in the bottom, then glue some empty plastic 35mm film cans to the bottom with epoxy or maybe some gorilla glue. Dump the film, still on the reel into the can and turn on the water. Adjust the flow so that the inflow and outflow are the same.

 

Does it get rusty? Yeah, sure it does. Does it matter? No. When it gets too rusty just toss it and make another. Just another example of dumpster diving.

[arden_howell]

I use a method very similar to Frank's, but with a large size plastic cottage cheese container instead of any thing metal. I use an ice pick to punch holes in the bottom, drop in the film reel, and adjust the water until the inflow and outflow are the same. Adjust the flow with more holes if needed. Works like a charm.

[chris_waller]

For film washing I just use the developing tank and a variation on the Ilford hand-washing method. I just fill the tank and give 10 inversions, empty, refill, then 20 inversions, empty, refill and then 40 inversions. Finally I immerse the reels in a jug of water containing 800 ml water and Paterson weting-agent at 2 drops per 100 ml water.

 

There are three critical factors when washing film - temperature, turbulence and time. The Ilford film washing method using water at 15-20 C is more than adequate to give archival quality negs.