Washing with daylight tank; controlling temperature

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It's easy for me to control the temperature of water coming out of the faucet when the water is coming out at normal rates, i.e. rates that would seem to be too much for the small Minox daylight tank. When I diminish the water flow to the recommended thin stream, I find it almost impossible to control temperature, even a little bit. Not a huge problem with films like Tri-X, but I am more concerned with Tmax 100, the film I'm currently using.

Questions:



-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), January 04, 2000

Answers

A dissenting view: I know this is heresy, but I only use the Minox Tank for development proper.

When my timer goes off, I turn off the lights, pull out the Tank spiral with the film still on it (I use my right thumb to keep the cassette on its little mount), dunk it into a large graduate of water (roughly the right temperature, to prevent reticulation) two or three times, then unspool the film and drop it into a tray of fixer. After about a minute, I turn on the lights and swish the film around in the fixer tray until it's clear (taking care not to scratch the emulsion side), then leave it in the fixer for a couple of additional minutes.

I then wash the film in a small tray with a faucet running into it (again at roughly the right temperature to prevent reticulation), swirling the film from the cassette end and taking care not to bruise the emulsion side. Most films only need about three minutes of this, but TMX takes roughly twice as long to finally lose its purplish cast. Then a quick dunk in a dilute PhotoFlo solution, and hang it up.

I've done this with nearly a hundred rolls over the years - the Minox Tank is THE solution for developing, but for rinsing, fixing, and washing, I find not using it works fine... and I NEVER worry about adequate solutions at each stage, as I'm using vast amounts of them compared to the size of the film.

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), January 05, 2000.


I use the Minox tank for developing and fixing,then unwind the film into a larger 35mm tank for rinsing.I place it in the sink with running water flowing through the tank for an hour(probably too long) and it comes out perfect.

-- Lance Novak (roobunny@aol.com), January 09, 2000.

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