Modifications to Kodak 8x10 hangers for even development of double-sided X-Ray film

[Sam L]

I've been working on developing Fuji HR-U double-sided x-ray film in 1-gallon vertical tanks with Kodak 4A hangers and have made some good improvements that I wanted to share.

I created a repeatable test that accentuates uneven development issues: I put 4 sheets of 8x10 film into film holders and then flash them each with a dim bare bulb for 1/10s. The resulting negatives are even but over-exposed. I then develop them in 1:250 510-pyro in vertical tanks using inert gas agitation with the standard 1s on 10s off pattern until the negatives are quite dense. The dilute pyro is unkind to uneven agitation (surge marks) and to insufficient agitation (bromide drag).

Here's the starting point with unmodified hangers:
223418

I then increase the "dehaze" setting to +50 in Lightroom to really bring out any unevenness:
223419

As you can see, the side and bottom edges have surging issues from the developer moving through the holes in the hanger. The top shows four white marks due to the hanger's springs touching the back side of the top. Here's an unmodified Kodak hanger for reference:
223427

I did a bunch of experiments and ended up with three modifications:
1. Close the holes in the face
2. Cut open the bottom of the hanger
3. Raise the clip at the top so that it only touches the margin of the photo and extend the face so that it still holds the photo in.

Here's the result:
223428

The surge marks on the edges are gone. The clip marks on top are gone. The evenness in the center is imperfect but unchanged. There remains some ghosting at the edges where the film sits in the hangers.

I'll follow up with details for each modification.

[Sam L]

Kodak 4A hangers have holes all the way around the sides facing out and holes on one of the faces. I thought the holes on the face were to improve chemical flow to the emulsion but the holes appear to be on the back -- the non-emulsion side of the film. Since HR-U x-ray film is double-sided, I thought it would make sense to drill matching holes in the other face of the hanger (left is unmodified, right has holes in both faces):
223435

However, this made the surge marks much worse:
223436

I additionally noticed that Carr hangers do not have holes in either the face. Taking the hint, I closed the holes in the face with a thin layer of epoxy (hot glue works too) and saw an immediate improvement:
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The surge marks on the sides were gone. The bottom was improved, though some surge marks remained from the holes in the bottom edge.

[Sam L]

To fix the remaining surge marks at the bottom of the hanger, I used a cutoff wheel and a file to remove most of the metal in the bottom, creating long open slots:
223439

The result was no more surge marks on the edges:
223440

There is still more development at the margins (I'm guessing more turbulence from the hangers) but the lighter edges are much nicer than the surge marks from the pores.

[Sam L]

The third change I made was to address the marks left on the rear emulsion by the clip at the top that holds the film in. It hangs down relatively far below what I consider the margin of the film. On single-sided film, this is a nice feature because the film is more secure from popping out during development. On double-sided film, this is a bummer because it's actually touching one of the emulsions.

This was a harder modification. I ended up removing the top clip and welding it back on a bit higher so that just the rod was below the edge of the film. Getting the clip off was not very hard. It's lightly spot welded on, so it was sufficient to grab the end of the rod in a vise and wiggle the hanger until it popped off. Getting it back on higher up is harder. I TIG welded it, which I imagine is not available to most people. Another option might be to tap the little dog that hangs down and bolt it back on, but this is challenging too. Modified hanger is on the left, unmodified on the right:
223441

After the clip is moved up, it will only retain the film from coming out the back side. It might be possible to use the hangers like this but any sideways movement when shuttling the hangers between tanks could pop the film out the front, which is a disaster with the very tender x-ray film. My solution was to extend the front face down a bit with some stainless wire (left one):
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The wire only hangs down as far as the clip and never touches the film during normal development. With this, the marks on top were gone:
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[Neal Chaves]

I abandoned tanks and hangers for tray development in the 80s. I found that the hangers were acting like radiators around the edges of the film affecting developer temperature and activity, causing several types of artifacts.

[Vaughn]

Interesting project. I am wondering how just a wire frame with clips facing inwards from each corner to hold the film suspended within the frame would work in comparision. Creating a new style from scratch might be no more work than to modify existing hangers.

The sure cure is to photograph very busy scenes (such as forests) where a little unevenness does not show up in the image! :cool:

[Sam L]

Vaughn,

X-ray film hangers are similar to what you suggest. The clips at the edges actually punch holes in the film with a little spike. Here are some for 14x17 film:
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I initially purchased some 8x10 x-ray hangers not knowing that they were different from standard negative hangers. They are cheap and abundant on ebay but they are designed for deeper, wider tanks. I hadn't considered modifying them at the time and have since gotten rid of them. Here's a photo of an 8x10:
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Shortening their height and cutting down the long rod at the top would be easy.

They are likely too wide to fit in Arkay-style 1 gallon vertical tanks. The film sits about an inch inside of the frame on each side. I only have about 1/2 play on each side. You could solve this by making wider tanks or finding shorter clips.

I think the hard part would be to find or make narrow clips that are strong enough to hold the film (especially from side-to-side forces) without punching holes in the film. I can stack 4 Kodak hangers in my 1 gallon tank with about 1/4" between each and they don't touch. Wider hangers would drop that to 2 or 3 concurrent negatives. Or maybe the holes in the corners are ok!

[Sam L]

Neal, interesting idea about temperature being an issue. I develop at room temperature, but I pre-soak the hangers and negatives in tap water, which is much cooler to start. I wonder if that's causing some of the remaining edge effects I see.

[Neal Chaves]

Neal, interesting idea about temperature being an issue. I develop at room temperature, but I pre-soak the hangers and negatives in tap water, which is much cooler to start. I wonder if that's causing some of the remaining edge effects I see.

I never had a temperature-controlled tank line, just Cescolite plastic 4X5 tanks and Kodak hangers. I kept the lab at 68* in winter and 75* in warmer months.

[Tin Can]

Sam,

These are KODAK FILM DEVELOP NO 6

I found a box of 12 NOS not that long ago

These are very nice with 2 pinpoint tips and strong spring

That 2X X-Ray film is 11X14, so it was tray processed one at a time

I primarily use these clips for drying, they leave no dent

I also use 2 at a time to seesaw 14X36 X-Ray by hand

Later today I will make better images of my 8X10 tank system

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51818746830_8b8e2eb5d0.jpg (https://www.flickr.com/gp/tincancollege/9Q4821)Film Clips (https://www.flickr.com/gp/tincancollege/9Q4821) by TIN CAN COLLEGE (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tincancollege/), on Flickr

[malexand]

Interesting results! I've got a few extra hangers I will try modifying when I have a chance. I also have some 4x5, 4-up hangers that I have had really noticeable issues with surging at the holes in the middle channels, so I may consider opening up those as well if I can get better results.

[Sam L]

Hi Matt,

For whatever reason, I don't get surge marks with my unmodified 4-up kodak hangers, even with 1:250 pyro and dip-and-dunk agitation. My agitation technique is: lift, tip >45 degrees away from me, lower; lift tip >45 degrees towards me, lower. The lift, tip lower takes about 5 seconds. I agitate continuously for 1 minute and then do 1 pair of dip-dunks every 30s until the end. I have not tried these hangers with gas burst agitation or other developers.

In general, I found that more, rougher agitation resulted in more surging but less bromide drag (which is less of an issue at 4x5 than it is at 8x10). You might also see improvement with more gentle agitation.

X-ray film cut down to 4x5 is a very inexpensive way to experiment (~10 cents a sheet).

With the 8x10 hangers, the most effective modification I found was closing (not opening) the holes drilled in the face. I think it makes sense to try that first because it's easy to peel off a layer of epoxy or hot glue if it doesn't work.

[Jim Noel]

To fix the remaining surge marks at the bottom of the hanger, I used a cutoff wheel and a file to remove most of the metal in the bottom, creating long open slots:
223439

The result was no more surge marks on the edges:
223440

There is still more development at the margins (I'm guessing more turbulence from the hangers) but the lighter edges are much nicer than the surge marks from the pores.

Do you dip the hangers in Photo Flo? If so that is probably the cause of over-development along the edges. PF adheres to the metal and becomes a catalyst, thus over-development. Wash the hangers and use a toothbrush to scrub inside and out. Your problem should be solved if you keep them out of PF. I haven't used it since about 1970.
Jim

[Mark Sampson]

Solving these issues can be a long road. You're trying some innovative ideas, great!
When I worked for Kodak, for a few years I ran a b/w sink line- 3-1/2 gallon tanks, using replenished D-76 and an EK gas-burst system. Most of the evenness issues had been fixed long before I was hired, but there were a few that I had to solve. However that was in the late 1980s and the details are long forgotten... except that it was a pain to solve. Since I was shooting about half the film that went through that sink line, there was a powerful incentive to get it right!
I will add that Jim Noel is correct. My first real job was in a custom lab, developing B/W film. That place had a procedure called "purging" where once a week, hangers, reels, etc. were soaked in running 100F water for 15-20 minutes. The lab owner explained that this was to remove any Photo-Flo buildup. I used manual agitation there, never any unevenness problems.
Best of luck!

[Sam L]

No, I don't use photoflo. But, I will try scrubbing the hangers. Maybe they're contaminated from a past life or with other stuff. Thanks for the idea!

[Sam L]

I wanted to add that if you are willing to pay for standard full-strength chemicals and name-brand film, you will probably get excellent results with unmodified hangers and dip-and-dunk agitation. This stuff has been around and working for a long time and I imagine that's the right choice for most professionals. I'm working on this because I'm an amateur and I can't justify $10+ per photo but I still want to use an 8x10 camera and get good results.

I'm now getting excellent results with these hanger mods and the gas burst agitation system I talked about here:
https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?166988-DIY-Gas-Burst-Agitation-for-1-gallon-vertical-tanks
https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?166710-8x10-Vertical-Tank-Development-Issues

Fuji HR-U is $0.40/sheet and Rodinal and home-made Pyro developers are $0.25/sheet. I figure that saves me about $150 every time I use the camera. HR-U also looks great to me -- all of the dynamic range and sharpness I need for portraits, classic orthochromatic look and ISO 80 to boot. I hope other people can use some of these ideas and make a bunch of art with these amazing old cameras.

I will say that Tin Can is getting even development with unmodified hangers on x-ray film and his gas burst system. Yet, I now have a similar gas burst system and when I copied his technique to the letter, I got surge marks and ghosting from my hangers. I think we are using different x-ray films because his development times are much longer for the same developer and concentration.

Intuitively, if the hangers are asymmetrical but your film is symmetrical (double-sided), your development cannot be even. There are holes in only one face of the Kodak hangers (interestingly, facing the non-emulsion side of standard film).

Furthermore, if one side of the hanger is touching the emulsion you will get a mark where it touches 100% of the time. The top of both Kodak and Carr hangers touch the rear emulsion of double-sided film along the top.