I am building a darkroom in my basement and do not have access to running water. How can I create a print washer, maybe using aquarium materials? Also can the print chemical trays just sit in room temp water?

-- Jill Bida (jill_bida@hotmail.com), November 26, 2000

Answers

Recirculating the water for print washing is no good, if that's what you were thinking of doing. The water needs to be changed for fresh completely, at least 3 times during the wash, preferably 5 times.
As for the other part of your question, that depends what 'room temperature' is. If it's 68 Farenheit or above, then yes, room temperature is fine. Developing prints at anything much below that is unsatisfactory, in my experience.
There's no advantage to placing the trays in a water bath, if it's at room temperature anyway.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), November 27, 2000.

Jill, a lot of fixer is removed from prints simply by soaking them. Thus I would recommend you keep a large plastic container handy into which to transfer the prints from your 'fixer remover' tray. Then, periodically take them up to your bathroom or wherever you can install a printwashing set-up of some kind.

I use a tray designed to hold paint, for my prints up to 11x14. You know, the slanted ones you use with a paint roller. I drilled a couple of holes in the side of the deep end, and place the shallow end under the faucet in my bathtub.

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), November 27, 2000.

Christian has the right idea. I use an 11x14 tray for holding my prints until washing time. But one modification I did make to this was to go with the Ilford washing scheme in which I use film strength fixer for 2 minutes with agitation and no more. I then rinse the print in a tray full of water and place the print in a second holding tray. This first tray of water washes off most of the fixer so that I am not placing fixer laden prints into my holding tray which will just make washing them all that much harder. I empty the rinse tray frequently to decrease the likelyhood of soaking the prints in fixer laden water. Then when I am through I take the prints out to a sink (it could be your bathtub) and wash them there. I use a washaid all the time to enhance the washing effect and then I only need 10-15 minutes in the wash cycle. The key is to not let them sit in any fixer laden water any more than necassary. Eliminating fixer is the whole reason for washing in the first place. And your bathtub makes a great place to wash prints. James

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), November 27, 2000.

James,

For most rapid washing, Ilford recommends only 1 minute in fresh fixer, then washing. This is actually said to be the optimal for archival processing.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), November 28, 2000.

You are right Terry. Ilford says to fix in two baths for 30 secs each. I just use my modification based on residual silver and residual hypo. For my water(I don't use distilled water) it comes out best at two 1 minute fix with developer strength fix. James

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), November 28, 2000.

Actullay Ilford shows both fixing methods, but the short one with a short wash is the one recommended are archival. The "standard" method is the 2 - 1 minute fix steps, but it requires much longer washing.

I wonder why the short fix doesn't work for you James?

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), November 29, 2000.

My water is full of alkalis so it might have some effect on the diffusion of fix throughout the gelatin. I don't know. I tested it quite awile ago and have kept it that way ever since. My wash times give me good prints, that have hung under glass, for a very long time in lots of different lighting conditions with no problems. James

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), November 29, 2000.

James,

Hard water is good for washing, bad for most other photo processes. I use distilled water for mixing stock and diluting chemistry, but tap water for washing, with film final rinses in distilled water to avoid spots.

If it works for you, then it is great, but Ilford does seem to feel that you get better archival results from the 1 minute fix then wash method.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), November 30, 2000.

David Vestal did some testing of the 'soak' method of washing prints. Seems to work very well. Just fill the tray, soak the print for 10 minutes or more about 8-10 times of fill & dump and you should have a nice, clean print. It even worked well for prints not treated in any kind of hypo clearing agent, though the ones treated came clean more quickly. It isn't just the change of water that does it, it is being in the water for a sufficient time to let the fix leach out of the paper. Get a residual hypo test kit or make one and try it to see how well it works with your local water. Try to standardize on the last one or two soaking periods with distilled water to short circuit any residual effects of the crap in your local water.

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), December 01, 2000.

Check out the article on print washing in Special Issue no. 11 of _Photo Techniques_, which I think is still out on more comprehensive newstands. It mentions that during a water shortage, Ansel Adams used 7 successive trays of water for washing, periodically dumping the first tray, rinsing and refilling, and moving it to the end of the line. Of course, he had an assistant for this purpose.

When I've had a waterless darkroom, I've just kept the prints in a holding tray, then brought them over to the bathtub for a regular running-water wash.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), December 02, 2000.