Is it OK to quickly dip my 4x5 negatives into alcohol to expedite drying?

[AtlantaTerry]

Harold: it has long been my opinion that wood clothes pins work better than plastic because (IMHO) the wood swells upon contact with the fluid giving a stronger grip whereas plastic does not and the film might slip off.

[AtlantaTerry]

I am going to give my old technique of spring-powered wooden clothes pins another try. I bought 36 and drilled holes about 1/4 inch in from each "handle". Then I used flower arranging wire to fashion hooks that will attach to my drying line.

Last night I was at The Container Store and noticed in the gift wrap department some teeny tiny wood clothes pins. I suppose they might be used to adorn gifts for baby showers so some such. I bought a package of 25 for $2 with the idea in mind that they will be just the thing to hang from the lowest corner of my negatives to drain excess fluid off yet not leave much of a mark since they are so small.

When I run the next batch of film I will report the results back here of how it went with the clothes pins.

At this point I am still wary of using alcohol to speed drying and will only resort that that if needed.

Thank you all for your feedback, it was very helpful.

Terry

[jp]

I've used alcohol and clothespins for 20 years to dry film.

I wear gloves as the alcohol will release oil from your skin and that will smear across the negative. But I wear gloves when handling negatives at any time now.
I do a final rinse in distilled water to make the negative clean.
Then hang it on the clothespin.
With my 91% isopropyl alcohol bottle from walmart, I have poked a small hole in the safety seal. This turns the bottle into a squirt bottle. I then squirt the negative on the front and back so it's all wet with alcohol, and it dries quick.
Make sure the alcohol you use isn't full of beauty products. Rubbing alcohol may or may not contain additives that you don't want. Just check the ingredients.

[AtlantaTerry]

I got 80 assorted stainless steel clips for $20, they were on Chicago Craigslist for 6 months.

Are those the ones with two pincers? If so, I never liked them for 35mm or 120/220 film because they perforated the film damaging it so would never use them for sheet film.

[SergeiR]

Make yourself drying box/rack. With fan. Possibly with low heating fan. Or scavenge fleabay for them.

All you need is basically a cardboard box with strings. Clips you can buy from hobby stores by dozen. Get air filter from home store. Get fan from computer store for like 5$, stick fan to suck air out. Block opposite end (or side, its your call) of box with air filter. Close other exists for air. On you go.


Alternatively you can buy drying cabinet used from uppermentioned fleabay, they pop up all the time. I got big metal one after a while, so i can hang stips or dozens of 4x5/ 8x10 now (or slightly larger)

[Harold_4074]

Regarding wood versus plastic: YMMV

While the wood may swell, the grip is not improved because the force is pretty much controlled by the spring. Also, the swollen wood will have a larger contact area, which is explicitly not what you want. The pins that I found had serrations near the tips, and gripped well enough that the dried negatives showed tiny grooves molded into the gelatin, out there in the margin where the jaws had rested. Stainless steel springs, too!

Now, if you are willing to really brutalize your negatives, you can try a trick that I understand was once use for combat photography: a quick rinse in nearly-saturated sodium sulfate solution, and then dry with a towel. It was probably useful for contact-printed bomb damage assessment pictures, but I can't imagine what an enlargement would be like

[AtlantaTerry]

Thanks, Harold, but I don't think I'm going the sodium sulfate route. Isn't that the same stuff Polaroid said to use on their P/N film if you wanted to transport the negative in their purpose-built tank? The problem I encountered was spillage and the resulting chemical powder when the fluid dried. Then I read in some photo magazine to, instead, use a PermaWash such as that from Edwal or Ilford that came in liquid form. My clients and I were much happier after I converted.

Back in the '70s when I experimented with spring-powered wood clothes pins I always felt that they gripped my negatives nicely. The ones that fell to the floor were more likely user error. RTFM! When it came time to remove the film from the clips it frequently was a struggle because the two had dried together. Since the clothes pins I used back then were flat on each side they did not pierce or bend the film but they did leave a bit of a mark in the clear area created by the holder end flap where the emulsion was gripped. But that mark never affected my enlargements. I'll see what happens with the clothes pins I bought this week. (No stainless steel springs, though.)

[AtlantaTerry]

Make yourself drying box/rack.

I like that idea. But instead of a cardboard box that could shed fiber what I would use is one of those sturdy dark grey plastic tubs with two hinged interlocking flaps. The tubs can be found at hardware or home improvement stores such as Home Depot for less than US $10. As a matter of fact, I have a couple already in my bedroom that I use to store my chemicals, sheet film racks, GraLab timer, etc.

The nice thing about the tub is it can be wiped down with a damp microfiber cloth periodically to remove any loose dust then spray the inside with an anti-static product such as EnDust.

To modify the tub I would do as you say and cut a hole for an air filter. I would spray the air filter with more EnDust. I'm not sure if I would want to pull any air through the tub. At first I would see how long simple convection drying takes.

Thank you for the suggestion, Sergei.

[BarryS]

I also find hemostats make excellent film drying clips. They hold very tightly and clamp with very little surface area. You can get them very cheaply on eBay and they're terrible quality for surgery, but great for film. I botched a lot of surgical procedures before I started using them exclusively in the darkroom.

[Lachlan 717]

Rather than using a fan, perhaps consider getting a heating pad. These are often used in the home brew process. Put in the bottom of the drying cabinet/box, and with the hole and air filter, it will both warm the air within the cabinet and create convection currents of clean air.