cleaning white paste from impossible PQ 8x10 film

[brighamr]

Hi

I have got a box of the impossible PQ 8x10 film which i peel to dry them out and then intend to mount them onto a new white background for display
most of them have peeled fine after about 15 minutes but a few have stripped away some of the white paste from the negative sheet

Has anybody found a way of removing it from the positive
I have tried but just end up stripping the emulsion

thanks

robin

[Bob Salomon]

Have you told the manufacturer? I would want my money back on any sheets where the emulsion was stripped.

[Jim C.]

At 20 bucks a shot you're better off contacting them to see if it's user error or defective film
I second what Bob said, if they determine it's defective.

[brighamr]

I have contacted impossible to ask for advice but what I am doing is a bit of an alternative technique so not really a manufacturer problem

the PQ 8x10 film is an integral film so unlike type 55 etc the chemicals stay sandwiched inside the film between the positive and the negative which is fine except that over time these chemicals slowly keep doing there thing until they are dried up which results in the picture going a bit sepia
there are 2 ways to stop this

The first is to dry the thing sealed in a bag with some silica gel which is fine except it takes a month so a bit slow even for me

The second is to peel the positive which is basically a b/w transparency from the negative which is coated in the white dev paste then let them dry and put them back together or mount the positive on a white card

the way to peel is to wait about 15min to make sure you have full development then slowly peel as per other polaroid sheet film but sometimes small spots of the paste come away from the neg
and are stuck to the positive emulation
I have tried rubbing it or washing with water but that just ends up making a mess of the emulsion layer on the positive

I'm sure there is a simple chemical solution to this like the sodium sulphate clearing that we used to do with type 55 but I don't want to risk spoiling the ones I have as they are still good

robin

[Degroto]

Do you see the white spots when you mount them on a white background? Do you use a warming device when you peel? like a hairdryer? That seems to work judging some youtube movies. I agree it is not a technical mistakes of the film since it is not intended to peel apart. How about if you let it dry a little longer? or shorter. I ran out of ideas now. Did you have any progres since may?

[petetsai]

I've peeled about 30 of these for an assignment. I would usually wait an hour to 1 1/2 hrs and then peel them. It is something that has to be done very gently and with a smooth action to avoid having the emulsion tearing and also to minimize the pulling the paste from the backing. after doing about 3-4 I got fairly comfortable with it, in some cases it would pull little bits of the paste with it. If registration was held properly that would go back into the backing.

If where you're keeping them is very cool I would consider the hairdryer although I used it a couple times early on and discontinued heating unless it had gone 2+ hours of drying before peeling.

[adelorenzo]

I tried peeling a couple of them (based on the video) and got tons of white spots on the image. Does heat help with this?

[Bill L.]

Has anyone gotten better at peeling the 8x10 Impossible film over time and have hints they want to share? I tried my first shot yesterday. I let it sit for 20 minutes, and then tried peeling it without any heat. You can see the results below - I was getting white areas peeling off of the negative side and sticking to the mylar positive side. I also peeled starting from the tab end (the side with the guy with the white helmet), which I realized on relook at the videos most start in the other direction. Should I just give it less drying time before peeling? I would hate to have to pull out hairdryers and heat the things if I'm trying to do a shoot with a model!

Thanks!
Bill

122861

[Bill L.]

Bump - anyone have experience on peeling the film to dry it?
Bill

[vdonovan]

I've never had good luck trying it, hairdryer or no.

[Bill L.]

Thanks, Vince! I'll play and see what I can do. At $20 a shot, I didn't want to do that much experimentation on how to get the stuff to process well!

Bill