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  #1  
Old 10th May 2021, 08:51 PM
Nat Polton Nat Polton is offline
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Default Stop Baths. Separate For Film and Print

I use separate bottles of working strength fixer for films and prints.

Should this be done with stop baths?

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Old 10th May 2021, 09:04 PM
John King John King is offline
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Default Stop and fix

I have always done so as a matter of course for as long as I have been developing film and prints. It never occurred to me to do anything else.
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Old 10th May 2021, 10:58 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John King View Post
I have always done so as a matter of course for as long as I have been developing film and prints. It never occurred to me to do anything else.
I have seen reasons why separate fix was sensible on chemical grounds for film and paper which I cannot remember now but I had never considered a separate stop bath for film and paper when I used to use stop bath for both.

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Old 10th May 2021, 11:28 PM
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Most people use lower concentrations of fixer (typically 1+9) for paper ('tho those like me use the same strength as film (1+4) for paper as we use the Ilford recommended method of using short fixer time with strong fixer and hypo-clear to reduce wash times.

Stop has no chemical action other than to provide an acid environment to stop the (alkaline) developer and prevent alkaline contamination of the acidic fixer so I'm not seeing an obvious reason unless the small amount of by-products from the developer being carried over into the fixer via the stop might be an issue. But I do not recall ever seeing a recommendation to use separate stop baths (not that that proves anything, but I have read quite a lot ) so I'd be interested if anyone has a rationale for doing so.

In practice I do keep them separate as most of my printing is in my Nova slotty thing (or I use a tray when messing about with a new developer brew and still use the Nova for the stop and fix) so it gets filled and left in there until nearing exhaustion. A separate container of 2 litres of stop sits on a shelf for film.

Last edited by Bob; 10th May 2021 at 11:43 PM.
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Old 11th May 2021, 07:36 AM
John King John King is offline
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Thinking about it, in all my time with film development I have never had the luxury of a darkroom with running water, so perhaps it was for
practicalities, because all film developing was carried out in the utility room downstairs and saved carrying bottles of chems from the darkroom(s) which have always been upstairs, to the utility room downstairs and back
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Old 11th May 2021, 10:28 AM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John King View Post
...because all film developing was carried out in the utility room downstairs and saved carrying bottles of chems from the darkroom(s) which have always been upstairs, to the utility room downstairs and back
I keep separate stop baths for print and film developing, just because I do my film developing in my bathroom, so stop bath for film is kept there and the stop bath for printing is kept in my darkroom at the end of the garden. So my reasons are similar to John's.

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In practice I do keep them separate as most of my printing is in my Nova slotty thing (or I use a tray when messing about with a new developer brew and still use the Nova for the stop and fix) so it gets filled and left in there until nearing exhaustion.
Again, but this time like Bob, I have a Nova processor for printing, so it would be a ridiculous task to drain and use the stop in it for use, when film developing, even if I did everything in one place.

And just like Bob, I too use a tray (a lot recently!) alongside my Nova, to try out new developers etc.

The only thing not mentioned, is that I filter each of the individual chemicals before use, when processing film, as various bits seem to accumulate as they are used, but especially in the fixer. I don't know the chemical reason for this, but I've never seen it happen in my Nova or in trays that I have used for printing papers over the years. Could it be to do with the lower water mix that film fixer requires?

Terry S
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Old 11th May 2021, 11:19 AM
tillari tillari is offline
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I do use the same stop bath for film and paper... It's only acid...
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Old 11th May 2021, 02:25 PM
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I use a separate stop bottle for film as it is more convenient than emptying it from the Nova.
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Old 11th May 2021, 02:53 PM
EdmundH EdmundH is offline
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I use the same batch of fixer and stop bath for both film and B&W prints. I'm sure someone on this forum mentioned that it was a Bad Thing, but I've yet to discover what it is! - perhaps someone can enlighten me?
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Old 11th May 2021, 02:58 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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I use a common Stop Bath for paper and film.

As Bob said, the purpose of the Stop is to create an acid environment to counteract the alkali of the developer and therefore bring development to a halt.

The reason why you need to keep paper and film fixers separate is that film has iodine in it and this iodine compound is very difficult to wash out of a fibre paper base.

Therefore, it is acceptable to use your paper fixer to become your film fixer but not visa versa.

Personally, I keep my paper fixer and film fixers separate at all times - just to allow me to keep track of the films fixing life capacity.

Martin
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