Wet Mounting

[Rob Landry]

I know a lot of you guys wet mount but does anyone have any idea how these mounting fluids will affect the archival stability of the film? Have any studies been done by Kodak or Fuji? From what I've heard, Kami is basically lighter fluid which would mean it's a petroleum product or did I hear wrong?

[Daniel_Buck]

I've often wonder about wet mount scanning myself. Can any fluid be used, like say even just water? Or is there something about the particular 'mounting fluid' that works better than water? I've never done any wet-mount scanning before, but I'd like to try it.

[r.e.]

Daniel,

I can tell you from personal experience that water and water-based products, such as glycerine, will not work unless you want to experiment with the effect of softening of emulsions. I do experiment with that, so it is fine with me, but I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.

I can also tell you (although it may well result in dire warnings from people who have particular views on fire hazards) that Ronson lighter fluid works just fine. It takes only a few drops. Just mount the negative away from the scanner to avoid any possibility (remote as it is) of some kind of electrical reaction. The reality is, using lighter fluid to do fluid mounting is a lot like using it to reveal the watermarks in postage stamps, a practice that is very old. That said, I know that there are people on this site who will go ballistic at what I have just said,, firmly believing that using lighter fluid may cause some kind of conflagration. The manufacturers of commercial scanning fluids say that they are non-flammable. It's not at all clear to me whether they are more archival. The one thing that is clear is that they are a lot more expensive.

Before you make a decision about this, do an internet search on the company that makes a non-flammable fluid for postage stamp watermark identification. Reading their stuff, and then the stuff written by the people who sell scanning fluid, is interesting.

Cheers.

[Bruce Watson]

I've often wonder about wet mount scanning myself. Can any fluid be used, like say even just water? Or is there something about the particular 'mounting fluid' that works better than water? I've never done any wet-mount scanning before, but I'd like to try it.

Using water, or products that contain sufficient water to soften the emulsion risks gluing the film to the glass. If that happens you may find yourself removing your film from the scanner glass with a razor blade. Use products designed for the duty if you want to keep your film safe.

A good mounting fluid has properties designed for scanning film. Among other things that means it is optically clear and colorless, it won't damage the film or the scanner (more precisely, it won't damage a scanner drum since they are all designed for drum scanning), its viscosity is low enough that it can fill in the kinds of scratches and imperfections that are common to film and drums, and its evaporation rate is slow enough that building a mount is possible.

Best advice -- use a drum scanner mounting fluid to mount, and use the companion drum cleaner to clean up the scanner, and film cleaner to clean up the film. Don't mix the cleaners -- film cleaners can damage scanner parts.

[Bruce Watson]

I know a lot of you guys wet mount but does anyone have any idea how these mounting fluids will affect the archival stability of the film? Have any studies been done by Kodak or Fuji? From what I've heard, Kami is basically lighter fluid which would mean it's a petroleum product or did I hear wrong?

I've researched Kami and Prazio mounting fluids. They are both based on Naptha which is a petroleum product. And that's a good thing. Neither contain any water which could soften and swell the emulsion which would make it much easier to damage the emulsion.

These products (and similar products) have been in use for decades. There are no reports of damage to film from using Naptha based mounting fluids.

I use the Prazio version on a semi-regular basis. It evaporates cleanly leaving no residue, as does their film cleaner. I saw a report years ago (wish I could find it again) that indicated that generally drum scanning film was "good for it" in that the film came out of the process cleaner than it went in, and with less contamination that could cause long term damage in storage.

[Steve Kefford]

I know a lot of you guys wet mount.....

That could have a few interpretations :-).

Steve