Processing: What About Water?

[Two23]

I bought a couple of jugs of distilled water for processing film in my SP-445, but how do I make it the correct temperature? I'm assuming that's important. With tap water I can adjust it. My tap water comes from a city well, and is fairly clean. It is fairly "hard" water, here's a report:

http://www.siouxfalls.org/public-wor.../water-quality


Would I be better off getting one of those water pitchers with the built in filter, such as a Brita? I could use tap water at the correct temperature that way. I also wouldn't need to buy distilled water that way. Would this work? Any suggestions?


Kent in SD

[rdeloe]

I'd love to learn a better approach than what I do for mixing new solutions, which is microwave about 1/4 of what I need to warm it up over the desired temperature, and then mix it with the room temperature water. Because I'm using the same amounts most of the time I can get close most of the time. With pre-mixed solutions I have to heat it up in a warm water bath, e.g., I save my fix for re-use so that always starts at room temp and has to be heated.

I use distilled water too for developing, stop and fix because our water is very hard and the tap where I work is softened. I rinse with the softened water, and then final rinse with distilled.

Britta is just for taste and odour so I don't think that's going to help you.

[Alan9940]

I would suspect that most of us have to deal with the tempering of water and solutions. Most of the year, for me, revolves around cooling solutions down. I keep jugs of distilled or RO water in the fridge and mix to desired temp with room temperature water. I use a water bath for maintaining correct temp inside the tanks. If processing 8x10, I tend to work closer to room temp because I don't really have any way of properly maintaining something like 68-70F.

[Two23]

I just checked my unheated tap water. It's 49F degrees!


Kent in SD

[Willie]

My Uncle spent a winter in a cabin with no hot water at all. Idaho mountains. He would fill jugs with water and let sit on top of the refrigerator(propane powered) for a day to get to room temperature - which turned out to be generally 68 degrees. Then he could mix his developers, stop, fix and whatnot. Even mixed Pt/Pd and printed it during the day with the windows covered in the cabin as he went out on the porch and exposed it to sunlight for the UV.

[LabRat]

The good news is the standard average room temp in a environmentally controled space is 68degF/20C, which B/W likes... So if the chem is bottled inside this space, it's very close already... An interesting thing is that temp is truly tepid, neither warm or cool...

So if it is a little over or under temp, it is not too hard to bring to temp by rinsing the cool bottle under hot tap water for 15 second intervals, or put the slightly warm bottle in the fridge for a few minutes, but this takes some practice so you don't overshoot your mark...

Or the old best way is to fill a large sink or tub with the correct water bath at temp, and put the bottles in it some time before use... Again, something to get the hang of...

Remember large bottles take longer, and small ones change temp quite fast...

Control your temper... :-)

Steve K

[Huub]

And when the water is somewhere between 18 c and 25 c you can adjust the development times without adjusting the temperature of the water. On the Ilford website there is a table that gives a rough estimate on how much to correct.

[Pere Casals]

how do I make it the correct temperature?

If you use diluted developer... I use Xtol 1:1. If the stock is at say 22.5ºC then mix water until it's at 20ºC-2.5ºC, so at 17.5ºC. If tap water is too hot (not usual) then I can stir with an ice cube in it until I get the required 17.5ºC.

So a convenient trick for diluted developers is to make water at the temperature that will end in the 20ºC after mixing the stock developer in. So mixing cold and hot water solves it.

Another way is using liquid concentrated developers, so also mixing hot and cold water before adding the concentrate.

Another way is having a cabinet for wine to store chem, search amazon: wine cabinet temperature control , some under $100, or second hand for the half.

[Tin Can]

I buy distilled water 10 gallons at a time from Walmart as they are the only local source that has plenty. Read on... 80 cents a gallon last time. I always wipe the bottom of the jug with my hand and look at the water level to discover a leaker. Some do leak.

Then I store my water on the floor as it's a little cooler down there. I use 95% liquid DR chemicals and store them in a utility sink 2 feet up.

I don't really need to check temps as it's all very close to what I want.

I run a Hass water temp mixer for darkroom washing with hot and cold filters, it can instantly produce any temp from 65 to 115 F.

10 years I have been making coffee, food and drinking only the same distilled water as the DR as I suspect all water from any source. I also have emergency supplies of distilled water and hand powered water filters for survival.

Our main city water did fail last year for the entire area, a 5 ft diameter pipe broke inside the pump house/office. What a mess.

All bottled water became impossible to find.

It rains here 55" a year. Next I start collecting water.

Some say we can wash film and prints with tap water at any temp with no harm. I have not tried that.

[bob carnie]

I have always used Distilled water for PMK , and regular tap water for ID11, it seems that region by region , big city small town , all have different dynamics.