----- Original Message ----- From: "graywolf" Subject: Re: Recommendations: Roll Film Washer
> No, no, no! You must, absolutely must, buy a $500 "ARCHIVAL" film washer. > The intersting thing about film washing is how easy and quick it really can be, with no additional equipment. A hose running a slow trickle of water into a tank will probably take a half hour to wash the film, and speeding up the water flow won't change that time significantly. You will also run 80-120 liters of water, perhaps more. This is how most archival washers work, the big difference between it and running a hose ito the processing tank is that in theory (though not necessarily in practice) the archival washer works more efficiently. OTOH, if one remembers that the soak through time on film emulsion is around 15 seconds, and that double that effectively removes all the chemistry that is going to be removed by that tankload of wash, then all you need to do for archival washing is a fill and dump regimen where you fill the tank with clear water and gently agitate it for a half minute, drain and repeat a half dozen times. You can archivally wash a tank of film in less than ten minutes this way, and are using far less water (which is too valuable to waste) than a running water bath. In the Jobo, I can archivally wash a dozen rolls of film in less than 10 liters of water. William Robb
