I built a slosher

[David Karp]

Hi everyone,

I finally got around to building a "slosher" per John Sexton's design. I have tried Phil Bard's processing panel and hangers, and thought I would give the slosher a try.

The slosher is a processing panel that is made of plexiglass. It has a number of vertical plexiglass pieces that hold sheets of film in place. John Sexton devised it to process film when using dilute developer for its compensation effect. I plan to use it with my regular two bath developer.

In my first go round, the "expert" at the store recommended aquarium glue to hold it together. That was a miserable failure. I pulled it apart after a week and cleaned off all of the glue.

This time around I used Weld-On 3 acrylic solvent. It set up very quickly and should cure in about 48 hours, but the instructions say that it continues to solidify for weeks.

Now that I have glued the thing together for the second time, my questions for those of you who might have built one of these things: What glue did you use? If you used acrylic solvent, how long did you wait to use it to develop film? When you use it, do you lift it out of the solutions by the vertical dividers? I am wondering if the bond is strong enough. I don't want the thing to come apart in the middle of a developing session!

Thanks in advance.

[Mark_3632]

Can you please say where you got the plans to build the "slosher". It sounds interesting.

[Richard Wasserman]

I've built a couple of these for different format films using plexiglass and thickened acrylic cement. The trick with using a thin solvent to join acrylic plastic is to have the pieces fit tightly with as few gaps as possible as the solvent will not fill empty spaces. If the parts you made fit well, I would think you could safely use your Slosher after letting it cure overnight. The bond does continue to cure for a few days, but reaches most of its strength in a relatively short time. I lift mine by their dividers and have had no problems. I hope you enjoy yours, it is a useful tool.

[Mark Fisher]

I've built a number of things from plex and acrylic solvent is the way to go as long as your surfaces match up well. Is there a plan for such a thing on the web? I've thought about building one, but I'd love to build one that someone has already proved works!

[Dave Schneider]

Plexiglass seems like overkill to me. I built several from plastic styrene sheet I bought at the hobby shop. Any solvent type glue will work on the styrene and completely cure within a few hours. Plexiglass is expensive and doesn't glue nearly as well and is more difficult to cut. The problem with any of these slosher designs is that you can get turbulence around the dividers between the sheets. I have made them with round rods for dividers, sheet strips, you name it. Whatever separates the sheets has the potential for vortices to form when rocking the tray for agitation. You have to be careful to agitate too agressively or the vortices become worse. Agitate to little and you have uneven development from that. In the end I gave up and went to tubes. Development is much more even than I ever obtained with the slosher designs (and I have four different designs).

[Robert A. Zeichner]

I used Weld-on #16 thick acrylic cement for mine and they have been going strong for several years. My sloshers were my own design fashioned after the ones made by many others and sized to fit in some slightly oversized 8x10 trays I already owned. My dividers are 5/16" diameter acrylic rods. My experience with agitation is that if you rock the tray gently once in a north/south direction then once in an east/west direction every 15 seconds, you'll have no problem with either uneven development or overdevelopment in areas adjacent to the rods. It is probably a good idea to space the rods in such a way that the film fits loosely into each "compartment". I've seen these sloshers made out of stainless steel wire mesh, which I imagine would eliminate that problem altogether.

[Frank Filippone]

Sexton used the Slosher design for long development times in very dilute developer. It was / is not a mainstream developing method for him. He uses a JOBO processsor these days of most of his work.

[Walter Glover]

David,

There was discussion of such devices a little while back. The following product and website was touted, it may be helpful:

http://www.summitek.com/cradle.html

In the same thread another correspondent mentioned using nylon nuts and bolts with threaded holes in the base sheet. The idea appealed to me as a neater solution and I went looking at an electronics store and found nylon bolt/washer/nut sets.

I've been too busy of late to take this project to the next step but I am sure a plastics fabricator would be well able to drill and tap holes at the appropraite points in a sheet of plastic.

[David Karp]

Thanks everyone.

Mark: Walter's reference to the Summitek site shows a device that is pretty close to the slosher. In the dim recesses of my memory, I think that they actually called it a slosher for a while.

Richard: Thanks. My parts fit together pretty well. I sanded the bottom edges of the vertical pieces down to rough them up a bit and make sure that they were flat so that they would be in contact with the bottom of the slosher, which is just a sheet of plexi with some holes drilled in the bottom. Thanks for the info on curing. Maybe I will have time to use it today!

Dave: Thanks for the heads up. I already fabricated my pieces from plexi, so I am going to give it a go. I won't use it for any critical negs until I have tested it out for vortex problems. For what its worth, I was worried about this when I started using Phil Bard's design for a processing panel, fearing vortices around the stainless steel screws, but it never materialized. I was just worried that one of these days I would scratch my film on the screws, or that a sheet would pop out from under the screws during development. Hence my interest in trying the slosher.

Robert: Great idea. I may build a second generation version of my slosher. If things don't work out with the straight dividers in the first version, I will try the rods. If you don't mind, what did you use to cut them?

Frank: Thanks also. I know that Sexton uses this for compensating development, but since I have tried a similar solution (Bard's) for standard development, I thought I would try the slosher for the same. I can't afford a Jobo yet. Maybe someday.

Walter: Check out Phil Bard's site (http://www.philbard.com/panel.html) for directions for the panel you descibe. I did it using stainless steel screws instead of nylon. If you want, you can build it yourself very easily. I drilled the big holes using a hand power drill - No problem. Then I filed them down to create a smooth surface and a bevel to protect the film. I bought a tapper at the hardware store and used an old fashioned hand powered drill to tap the threads for the screws. It worked great, and did not take long to do. Probably a lot cheaper than going to a fabricator or machine shop. The panel worked, I am just interested in trying something else. Perhaps its another one of those "magic bullets."

Again, thanks to all for their quick and helpful responses.

Dave

[sanking]

If the objective is merely a system that will allow one to develop sheet film in very dilute solutions another solution that you might also consider is to develop the film in open ended tubes. To do this just cut some PVC tubing to the right length, slide the film into the tubes and and place them in a light tight container for developing. With 4X5" sheet film you can place up to eight 1.5" diameter tubes in a gallon paint can. You can agitate either by just moving the can around, or alternatively, you could turn the light off, remove the lid and move each tube up and down if what you want is less vigorous agitation.

There has been quite a bit of discussion on this method of develoment on the AZO forum over the last week weeks. Consensus appears to be that film developed in very dilute solutions with reduced agitation should be placed in a vertical orientation.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

Dave, In answer to your question about how I cut the rods, I used a lathe running at slow speed and cut them with a parting tool.

[David Van Gosen]

Sandy,

How much solution do you use for the tubes in a gallon paint can? A gallon? I guess that really would be a dilute solution...

Where can I find the AZO forum you mentioned?

Thanks, David

[sanking]

David,

You could process eight sheets of4X5 film in individual tubes (open end) in a gallon bucket using approximately three liters of developer. This is not such a big deal because with this type of development you will probably be using very dilute solutions.

My personal opionion is that this system is much simpler to assemble than a slosher type system with separate panels, and gives results that are at least as good. Except for the rather large amount of developer needed I can not find any disadvantage at all. In fact I think the possibility of uneven development is much less with the film in tubes than with the slosher system where there is some possbility of turbulence from clips, rods, etc.

The address for the AZO forum is http://www.michaelandpaula.com/mp/index_skip.html

There are several different threads with some information about this type of development.

[Henry Ambrose]

I have some plexi tanks I built using solvent glue and I filled them the next day and have had no failures. They are made like a book slipcase and I use them as vertical trays. When full they bulge a good bit but the joints have not failed. After the first glue application set, I went back over the joints with an additional coat. That seems to have added a filet of material that beefs up the joint.

On the subject of tubes, a 1.5 inch tube 6 inches long holds 150ml of solution (maybe 175ml depending on the cap). Thats enough capacity to use a dilute developer such as Xtol 1:3 and covers the film with the tube standing upright. A full tube allows you to vary agitation from all you want to none at all. Its likely that neither one of those extremes will give good results but something in between will. If you use less than a full tube you will have to go to the BTZS method of constant agitation in a water bath.

Very simple tubes can be made by cutting -GRAY- (white PVC is not light tight) PVC pipe with a cutoff saw and a fine tooth blade made for cutting wood and attaching caps on one end. Another tube with cap and a coupler holds the developer and fix. Anytime you are working with plastics and power tools be sure to wear safety glasses and/or a face shield. This stuff is much more likely to shatter, kickback and cause trouble than any wood you've ever cut. The resulting explosions can be violent. I have scars to prove this. I suspect that a saw blade that is ground specifically for plastics would help. Just be careful!

If you go for the even simpler method that Sandy describes you can use white PVC tubing and you don't need any caps! But you will have to work in the dark until you get the can closed and individual sheet development might be more difficult with your tubes in a can. But maybe not. The thread(s) Sandy King refers to on the Azo forum at www.michaelandpaula.com are absolutely amazing. Probably the best and most information about highly dilute, stand and semi-stand development I've ever seen in one place. Lots of great hands-on experience being reported.

[David Karp]

Mark Fisher: Sorry I missed your post the first time around. I don't know about any slosher designs on the web, but the photo of the Summitek product is a good approximation. Also, you might want to look at the Phil Bard site mentioned in my post above. I was given the design for the one I built at a John Sexton printing workshop. I used an 11x14 sheet for the base, and cut up a couple of 8x10 sheets I had laying around for the vertical dividers.

Sandy and Henry: Thanks for the suggestions for using tubes. Now that I have a slosher I think I will try it out , but perhaps tubes are in my future! I usually use a two bath developer, so I would have to think about how to adapt my two bath process to tubes. On first thought, I don't think that would be too hard.

Robert: Thanks for the tip on cutting the rods. If I build a second generation of the slosher I am definitely going to use rods, as I think the glue joint will be stronger and more durable.

Henry: Thanks also for the information on the plexi tanks. I was thinking of using plexi for a couple of things. Before I decided to try a slosher I was thinking of fabricating some tanks for some 4 up 4x5 hangers. Then I decided to forego hangers and built the slosher. The other project was for a print washer. That one is going to wait for a while.

Thanks to all for your responses.

Dave

[David Karp]

Here is an update:

Yesterday I processed twelve sheets of 4x5 Arista 400 in my slosher using Barry Thornton's 2 Bath formula. I have not made my proof prints yet, but the results looked very good to me. A couple of sheets included large portions of sky, which looked even. I did not notice any streaking or extra density in areas near the dividers. I followed Robert's recommendation for agitation. Of course, the proof will be in the proofing and printing, but I thought that an update was in order.

Thanks again.