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Thread: Urgent Help Needed!

  1. #1

    Urgent Help Needed!

    Hello all. I have 5 16x20 prints sitting in water as we speak waiting for further processing (2nd Fix and Selenium).

    My questions are:

    1. can I use my stop bath tray (clayton oderless stop) to do double duty as a tray for my perma wash? Or, do I risk some contamination?

    2. Do I need to dedicate a tray to selenium or can my developer tray do that as well. I want to avoid any risks of contamination etc.

    3. What is a common dilution for selenium with arista vc fiber... (it's supposed to be ilford paper)

    That's it! I didn't plan on printing this size this evening but did and didn't think about the other trays until now.

    Thanks for your help.

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Newbury, Vermont
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    2,260

    Urgent Help Needed!

    It should be OK to use your stop tray for perma wash, but do make sure to wash it thoroughly before your next printing cycle! As for selenium, you should have a dedicated tray for this. And especially don't use your developer tray for selenium as it will interact with any silver adhering to the inside of this tray, much as it would with a print. For a dilution, try starting with 1 to 19. Good luck!

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Kalamazoo
    Posts
    648

    Urgent Help Needed!

    I would have a dedicated tray for the developer and different dedicated tray for the selenium toner. The fixer and stop bath trays shouldn't suffer from having either stop fix or the clearing agent in them sequentially. Make sure to rinse the trays well before using a different chemical in them though. Reserve the developer tray only for developer.

    I'd be more concerned about letting the prints sit in the water bath between two fixers. Get them through both fixers ASAP, rinse them briefly and get them into the clearing agent as soon as you can. If you are going to let them sit in water, let it be after the clearing agent. You want to get all the residual thiosulphate complexes out of the fixed prints as soon as you can. Letting the fixed prints sit in water between two fixers is letting them sit in a weak fixer solution. You want to reduce the time the paper fibers contact the thiosulphate. Ilford data has shown that two quick (30-60 seconds each) and strong fixers (i.e., film strength fixer dilutions) are better than extended times (5 minutes each) in a weaker fixer (i.e., print strength fixer dilutions) since the fixing is accomplished quicker in the former before the hypo has a chance to bond to the paper fibers..

    Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner also contains a high percentage (40% IIRC) of ammonium thiosulphate (aka rapid fixer) so you want to wash or clear the prints ASAP after the toner as well.

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