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Old 9th November 2008, 06:55 PM
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CarlRadford CarlRadford is offline
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Default Alcohol in final wash!

Hi Folks

Reading through Way Beyond Monochrome I came across the suggestion of using alcohol in the final wash to help avoid any issues with streaks etc on the dried film I tried this today and it appears to have helped. What I did was just add about 50mls of 98-99% alcohol to 500mls of distilled water as there was no instructions - any ideas?

Cheers, Carl
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Old 9th November 2008, 06:59 PM
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Just found this thread but still no definitive answer - if one exists: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/5...-alcolhol.html
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Old 9th November 2008, 07:21 PM
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Hi Carl.

I add 1 capfull of Isopropyl Alcohol to 2 ltrs of Reverse osmosis water. The cap holds just over 4ml of the alcohol, which incidentally was the exact amount of wetting agent I used to add. I am sorry, but I don't know what the maths is on that. I drop my film in to the container, as I do not like to add anything to my developing tanks, though I am almost 100% sure that the alcohol would not harm, unlike some wetting agents, such as photo-flo.

I hope this helps.

Best

Stoo
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Old 9th November 2008, 07:23 PM
Dave miller Dave miller is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlRadford View Post
Hi Folks

Reading through Way Beyond Monochrome I came across the suggestion of using alcohol in the final wash to help avoid any issues with streaks etc on the dried film I tried this today and it appears to have helped. What I did was just add about 50mls of 98-99% alcohol to 500mls of distilled water as there was no instructions - any ideas?

Cheers, Carl
Seems like a waste of good alcohol to me.

Methanol, which is non-drinkable alcohol, so it may be wasted, has been marketed as a rapid film dryer. It both absorbs and displaces the water, and evaporates very quickly. Tetenal marketed it as Drysol. Methylated spirit will work in the same way.

I should add that it produces streak free negs.
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Last edited by Dave miller; 9th November 2008 at 07:35 PM. Reason: Wandered off topic.
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Old 9th November 2008, 07:37 PM
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On reflection Carl I think you should be asking yourself the question why you are getting streaky negatives, so that you can cure the cause, rather than the symptom.
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Old 9th November 2008, 08:17 PM
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On reflection Carl I think you should be asking yourself the question why you are getting streaky negatives, so that you can cure the cause, rather than the symptom.
Tis rare but I do not like them at all so anything that will circumvent the issue can be added to the routine. Funnily enough the apug thread I alluded to says not to use any form of denatured alcohol as this can cause problems!
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Old 9th November 2008, 08:27 PM
Dave miller Dave miller is offline
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I once read, in a very old photographic book, that a quick way to wash and dry a roll film was to dunk it in meths for a minute, hang it up, and set light to it. The author didn't mention any problems with streaks.

The question remains. If you had streaks before, but don't get them when adding alcohol then the method works for you. If you were only occasionally getting streaks, then try and isolate the cause. If the streaks are due to a washing problem, then they can surely only come from solubles in the water.
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Old 9th November 2008, 08:41 PM
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It'd be nice to have filtered water but its not that much of an issue. Someone had said just to filter the water that comes out of our condensing clothes drier but I'm sure that would be loaded with chemical residue from the detergents. Now I have a fire extinguisher in the darkroom - varnishing wetplate over heat with an alcohol based varnish can be exciting - I might try and flame dry the negs
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Old 9th November 2008, 08:50 PM
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I live in a hard water area, so I use filtered water for my final rinse. I don't get any water staining. I would not use the output from your clothes drier for the very reason you give.
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Old 2nd January 2009, 09:37 PM
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Jersey is a soft water island, and all I do is add around 2 or 3 ml of tetanal mirosol anti static wetting agent to a litre of straight tap water, soak the film for a nfew minutes,shake it in the spiral and hey presto clean negs, I have used this method for some time and no prodlems. The wetting agent is quite cheap from silverprint and a 250ml bottle goes a long way Richard
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