Any good alternatives to canned air for dusting off film before scanning and paper before printing? Anyone building a pump up air duster, like a small yard sprayer?
Any good alternatives to canned air for dusting off film before scanning and paper before printing? Anyone building a pump up air duster, like a small yard sprayer?
Ed Richards
http://www.epr-art.com
You can build one with a simple compressor but it will make a heap of noise. I just go to Costco and get a three-pack of Dust-Off for $8 vs. 1 can for $8 at B&H.
A lot of labs use a compressor. Usually a big one that has a storage tank, so the motor isn't running all the time. You'd want one with a pretty good filter and moisure trap. A friend of mind did this for his darkroom.
For dusting off inkjet paper, I use a draftsman's brush. For dusting off film before darkroom printing, I like a small antistatic brush. I find i only need canned air for scanning wet-mounted film.
I got a tank of CO2 for my darkroom from the local medical/industrial compressed gas dealer in the yellow pages.
Much less than a hundred dollars with all the hardware, nozzle, etc.
If it ever becomes exhausted (that was 15 years ago) my instructions are to simply exchange the empty tank for a full one. No need to purchase the tank and hardware but once.
Dramatically cheaper than those little spray cans. And no liquid mixed with the air.
Just a tad bulky for the gadget bag...
Very important concern with CO2, and less so with nitrogen: either one, in a closed darkroom, can kill you by simply developing a very slight leak. A leak can fill the darkroom with invisible, odorless gas, excluding oxygen, and cause suffocation in minutes after entering or over a longer time if you're in the room when the leak starts. I'd be concerned about using CO2 for dusting surfaces even in the absence of leaks -- the gas is toxic in concentrations as low as 4-5 percent by volume, causing rapid breathing, headache, fainting, convulsions, and death as concentration or exposure rises.
If the room is well ventilated, this is less of a concern, of course, but I'd prefer to use real compressed air, if there's a choice. Industrial compressed air can be obtained in pressure bottles at 2200 psi or higher, same pressure as nitrogen, is dried before bottling just as nitrogen and CO2 are dried in the separation process, and is much safer to use because it contains oxygen in the same proportion as ambient air.
On a side issue, rapid decompression and accompanying cooling can produce dry ice crystals in the exhaust flow of CO2 -- crystals which have the potential to damage a negative. Nitrogen is better, but air is best.
If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D
Ice crystals forming in the CO2 stream is not a problem if the compressed gas is dry to begin with. I have used CO2 for years in the darkroom, for air brushing and other applications where a noisy compressor would bother me. An air compressor musthave a suitable drying system that gets the dewpoint down to -40F or so and has good filters or you'll have a whole new set of problems. The time weighted average limit for CO2 is 5% by volume. Short term toxicity is about 25%. I wouldn't be too concerned about dusting off a lens or a negative with CO2. Just use some good common sense like shutting off the valve when you're done. Either nitrogen or CO2 will work fine. CO2 is sometimes easier and cheaper to obtain since it is used for the bars and such. A welding supply store can certainly set you up with a small cylinder, regulator, hoses and anything you need. A 15# cylinder usually lasts 1-2 years for me.
If the canned air doesn't blow the dust off then I use my SCUBA tank. I have to slowly turn on the valve otherwise blasting the negative with 3,250 psi will blow the negative out of the carrier. As all divers ask, "Gone down lately?" ;~)
I switched from Dust-Off type products to straight CO2 dusters when I realized how dead my lenses would be if I accidentally hit them with a liquid stream from one of those cans. I keep a cartridge-type CO2 duster in my camera bag.
Try a bicycle pump, or a balloon pump with a short hose. It makes for a two handed operation but then it never runs out of air at the wrong time.
I have to second the recommendation for a SCUBA tank. It's clean and dry and cheap. A diver friend lets me use his "almost expired" tanks with an old regulator and a "blower" nozzle avail;able at a dive shop, it lasts me 2 years of regular use and he gets his tank back to be recertified.
I have used CO2, compressed air, and the canned stuff-I am happiest with a SCUBA tank. Buy your friendly local diver a case of beer with every tank switch and you may never run out.
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