Hypo-clear is really a non negotiable in Scotland - the tap water is so soft that it is quite essential with FB prints in my experience.
Hypo-clear is really a non negotiable in Scotland - the tap water is so soft that it is quite essential with FB prints in my experience.
Is that a result of peat in the water ? Staining ?Originally Posted by interneg
I have 3 acrylic print washers. Hey if the price is right I'll buy anything. My most useful version is a 8x10/11×14 unit Dunwright and Vogel. I have a nice mag drive pump from a scrapped Noritsu processor. After a quick tray rinse off, a couple minutes, I put the prints in the full washer and just circulate the water, I do this 3 times. I have a syphon and drain combo I can empty the washer in about 90 seconds, then I use a couple of clean 3 gallon plastic pails (that I've already filled with water) pour them in takes about 30 seconds and turn the pump back on.
To get the water velocity that I get with the pump, I would need to run very high flow rates, a total waste of water. For big prints I would consider some kind of a rocking print washer, build a tray rocker and use a big Paterson tray. It's not rocket science to figure out that when the concentration of fixer in a couple to half dozen prints EQUALS ( comes to equilibrium ) with 5 gallons of water, by time, and agitation. With a couple of total changes of water you're good.
For Fixer to lay on the bottom, you would to add, with care, concentrated rapid fix. The fixer being heavier than water is a old marketing ploy. As long as you have adequate recirculation you will have a solution of uniform concentration.
This is a excellent point, I live in an area with hard water , calcium. My house uses a whole house water softener that uses ion exchange resin to exchange sodium for calcium. The result is impossible to use for mixing developer.
The outdoor sill cock (faucets ) use hard water from the piping before the softener. I've been meaning to plumb in a line, I probably won't ever get to it.
With all the lovely granite and the like in Scotland it's probably low in minerals.
How does Hypo Clearing Agent Work? What's the Chemistry?
per PE
https://www.photrio.com/forum/thread...mistry.169014/
Tin Can
Can you expand on this? I, like many, have hard well water and use a ion exchange water softener. I regularly use softened water for mixing developers. And for print washing as well.
In defense of Fred, if you take still tap water in a clear beaker, and drop in one drop of fixer, the ball of fixer will stay more or less intact and sink down to the bottom and spread. Now any turbulence in the water would, of course, make that tendency completely unimportant. Once turned on, whether the overflow exits top or bottom it wouldn't matter at all.
I, too, used softened water for mixing all my photo chemicals except for the final rinse in wetting agent, which I mixed with distilled water, and had fine results. Without the final (rather long) treatment in the distilled water/wetting agent, salt crystals would form on the surface of the negatives when drying. Prints were alright in this regard as long as I squeegeed the excess water from them. All that was years ago when I lived in San Antonio, which draws its water from wells drilled in the limestone bedrock; close to the hardest tap water on earth I would imagine.
I don't see why the sodium content of softened water would negatively affect developer except possibly to alter the developing time a tiny, tiny bit. I certainly had no problem with HC-110 and D-76 then. For stop and fix, the sodium should do just about nothing...
For negative and print washing, the wash times may be a bit longer with softened water, but again, only by a negligible amount.
Best,
Doremus
@ OP,
I would think you should be able to source at least sodium sulfite in Canada for not too much. It's used rather extensively in wine- and beer making as well as for many other industrial purposes. Then all you'd need would be a small bottle (500g or so) of sodium bisulfite/metabisulfite and you could mix your own wash aid easily.
I use one Tablespoon of sulfite plus a pinch of bisulfite per liter. EZPZ and just as good as Hypo Clear as long as your tap water is not too hard. If your water is really hard, then you may need the EDTA.
Best,
Doremus
It's got more to do with the amount of minerals dissolved in the tap water (TDS) . The town I grew up in, Cedar Rapids, IA I used tap water for everything, no problems. Color, black and white, few drops of photo-flo, everything good. I moved out of town into a development, 100 houses more or less, everyone had a softener, including my house, went to mix XTOL, disaster. There was so much sodium carbonate in the soft water, I couldn't even dissolve the XTOL. So I tried the water before the softener, there was so much Calcium carbonate in the water same result. My solution was an RO system, I think it removes about 90-95% of ionic substances, there's a couple carbon filters too, but they're there for taste and any wierd little bits of organics.
This part of Iowa has limestone quarries that produce Calcium Carbonate so pure it's used for toothpaste and food additives, 99% or better.
Where we live it's a ancient sea bed and limestone is several hundred feet thick, crazy. My wife is from New York, the water there is so free of minerals, when she moved out here she was shocked. Couldn't drink the water, couldn't get her hair shampoo too work right.
I have my current whole house water softener set at the minimum softening level. Otherwise there's so damn much sodium carbonate in the water it's slippery!!!
My experience, YMMV
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