OK, I've been doing FP4+ and HP5 processing in the Stearman tank for the past two months without a single screw up. I need to start processing the Lane plates now. I bought a set of three plastic trays with ridged bottom, DO have a red safe light, have been using HC-110, have tf4 fixer AND Kodak fixer with hardener. Also have a bottle of Kodak Photoflo I use in final rinse with distilled water. Now for the questions.

Reading the back of the box most of it makes sense to me now. However there are some things I don't know about and haven't been doing with the film:

1. After developing I just use a water stop bath for ~3 minutes. The Lane instructions call for an "acid stop bath." What's that? Can I just pour in vinegar, or is it a special solution I don't have? I'm guessing water stop bath won't work for plates?

2. After the stop bath do I just use tf4 for 4-5 minutes? I do that with the film and it seems to be working fine.

3. It next calls for "hypo clearing wash 4 minutes". What's that? The tf4 isn't a hypo?

4. 10 minute clearing wash if hypo used. Is my Kodak Photoflo a hypo? So if I use 4-6 drops of that in the water it's considered a hypo?


To complicate things I have several batches of plates I'm using up. My exposed plates are mostly from batch #14 exposed at
iSO 1. I haven't yet got into my box of batch #24 ISO 2. So, how do I process the different boxes? The simple answer would be for me to send the earlier plates in to Blue Moon to process, with a note, and start doing my own with batch #24. However, I do think I'm now up to doing them all. I just kinda sorta know what I'm doing which is a big improvement over where I was at the start of the year.


Kent in SD