Nah. That's WAAAY too simple and full of common sense...
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I use the wash time to put everything away and clean up the darkroom.
"Sleep is for wimps." he whimpered.
Too long in the water is harmful to the paper, RC or Fiber. Just the other day while visiting Ilford's website for toning information, I read where it cautioned against prolonged washing as it could wash the optical brighteners out off the paper. If you use HCA, that will cut the wash time down to 20 minutes - just enough time to clean the trays and beakers.
Thomas
My experience agrees with Bruce's, and I also have the Zone VI washer. If you avoid gross contamination of the washer that will result from not rinsing the fixer off at all before putting them in the washer, a few fills and soaks really does the trick. In my case, I give the prints a minute or two in a big tray with the Kodak siphon, then a few water changes in the washer and some extended soaking, and the results are fine with a lot of water saved. And because hypo is heavier than water....kidding.
You may want to do a test with your paper before investing in timers and flow restrictors. Two things are likely to happen with an extremely long wash time: First, the optical brighteners will leech out (this is good in my opinion, as I find the brightening makes the prints look artificial... I wash for two+ hours usually just to get rid of them). The second thing that can happen is that the emulsion will separate from the baryta backing. This can be just frilling around the edges to the whole print being ruined. If your paper doesn't hold up to long washes, overnight just won't work.
Keep in mind that over-washing is not the best for optimum permanence. Your overnight idea is never going to be best practice. You might consider splitting your work flow like I do. I develop, stop and give the first fix and then a 45-60 minute wash. I then dry the prints and gather enough for a toning session (culling the non-keepers in the process). The toning session consists of soak, fix 2, toner (selenium for me) hypo-clear and then a thorough wash of about a couple of hours.
Best,
Doremus
Perhaps I am over-washing. And I'm not too involved with being 'perfectly archival'. I've got prints I made as a kid (a long time ago) when printing in the garage was sloppy at best, that look fine. I don't see any fixing/washing issues at all on any prints. And after I'm gone, it really doesn't matter. The glaciers will melt and wash all my prints again. --ejw--
Yes Kirk, It sounds like what it might be... When a print has been oversoaked, I have noticed that while squeegeing the back of the prints, there might be circles of slight darkening from moisture that has saturated deeper into, (even to the base) more than other areas, and I could see when dry there might be a slight belly or ripple there... And your margin area is where you would tong/squeeze, so that would compress that area and squeeze more moisture in...
Another thing to check is how evenly your prints dry... You live in the SW with low rH, and I have seen during dry spells that once a print starts drying, the little bit of lift here or there might allow sections to dry even faster than others... Ideally a DWFB should have dried all sections evenly at the same time, but as we know, the edges dry first and works it's way inward curling as it goes (as the gelatin shrinks a little while drying)... But watch a print dry to see if the curl is somewhat even, without big bellies, ripples, bends, etc, as this might be a clue to sizing changes... Also, one place I printed at, had a fan near the drying rack, (not directly aimed at, but some air movement nearby) and I noticed that the front of the rack (with a large print drying in it) would start drying faster than the rear, and flattening became more complicated as the print dried with a wave, and the chances for hot pressing ripples increased...
Something that I had used for the surface of a print, turned out to help the drying/flattening... For low key prints, glossy air dried matt, I had noticed there might be a slight overall haze over the dark areas, that I figured might be coming from the tap wash water drying... So I added a final soak step tray of distilled or deionized water for a 5 to 10 minutes, and another dip with the smallest amount of Photo Flo I could blend, for a 30sec dip... (Photo Flo 200 diluted 1:4 with distilled water (stock), put into a glass dropper bottle, and for working, 1 drop/1 ltr water...) Then photo sponged them on a drain board... This opened up the surface clarity, but also wetted the back of the prints more evenly so tended to dry more evenly... (And flatten better...)
And to anyone else listening... If you try to flatten a print that is not dry enough, you will get ripples or bumps or overall unevenness, and can mess with the surface causing blisters, unevenness, etc... (Think 48hrs normal weather, maybe longer if wet/humid) Run the back of your hand over the back of the print to feel it is a little cool feeling... That's moisture... Also note that the very final dry-down happens after hot pressing, so print for that...
If you are looking for me, I'll be in the dark... Good Luck!!!!!!!!
Steve K
Bruce, well said.