RE: RE: home-made film driers

I have an Arkey dryer in the lab I manage but before this we used a closet.
The closet had
a vent in the top of the door and a light bulb mounter near the bottom of the
wall. This
bulb was only 25 W and it would create a little heat and convection to help
dry the
negatives. Drying would be complete in about 2 hours.

For a wetting agent I always use Edwal LFN mixed with distilled water. LFN
comes in a
little dropper bottle which allows easy and precise control of ammounts used.
It calls for
2-4 drops per liter. I also only use this following the recomendations from
Jobo. Through
testing they found that wetting agents stick to the reels when used in the
developing
tank. This would not wash off when you washed your tank before putting it
away. The
dryed on wetting agent could then cause unusual agitation near the reels that
could
cause a mottled appearence in broad expanses of sky. I remember reading about
this
mottled appearence in a book called "Landscape Theory". Im not sure who it
was either
Robert Adams or Luis Baltz complained about uneveness in the sky. They started
developing their 120 film in a tray instead of reels to elimnate this problem.
At our lab we
remove the film from the reels and pass the film through a tray by holding
each end and
see-sawing it through a few times, then wipe it off and hang it up to dry.

>===== Original Message From Kent Thompson <kthompson@moh.dcr.state.nc.us>
=====
>>>>Has anyone build a small film drying cabinet?
>
>Hey, yeah I 've built a couple..one similar to the bag idea already
>mentioned. I built another one (better) out of an old surplus school locker.
>I wedged some wooden "rails" along the side & had a row or two of
>coathangers spread across these--actually straightened out--with plastic
>clothespins on them to hang film from. I kept it really clean, and just hung
>the film in there to air dry. I used another darkroom with a similar
>home-grown dryer made out of a locker as well, but that one had a
>cannabilized heat/filtered fan unit from another film cabinet....
>
>I work in a lab as well, with a nicer, big Leedal cabinet...but another lab
>nearby had a dryer they made. They basically constructed a large
>freestanding wooden closet, and had a whole mess of incandescent lightbulbs
>wired into the bottom....they had wire strung up around the top of the unit
>with lots of stainless steel film clips....this lab ran a big tankline &
>would do about 90 some odd 4x5 sheets in a run. All the film was dried by
>radiant heat this way---for years. They finally bought a "real" cabinet
>though....but that old one worked pretty good for what it was.
>
>
>It might also be possible to rig up a poor-man's version of a Senrac
>dryer....that company made film dryers that used forced heat to dry the film
>still on the stainless steel reels---I've used these as well, but the film
>dries with a bad curl to it...dries fast though! About 5-10 minutes...They
>were a long tube that would hold about a dozen Nikkor reels maybe, with a
>filtered fan & heater at one end.....it was made to mount the unit to a
>wall, with the heater at the top, there was a catch that came across the
>bottom to keep the reels from falling out...if you were in a hurry, you'd
>just pack the reels with the film on it up closer with some empty ones....I
>imagine you could make one with some old tin cans or something...
>
>My drying cabinet in my own darkroom uses a forced air as well, that's
>filtered through this spongey/mesh material that can be rinsed out &
>re-used. Works great....not home-made though.
>
>
>KT
>
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Chris Peregoy
peregoy@umbc.edu
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~peregoy
Received on Wed Mar 6 22:05:36 2002