[pure-silver] Re: How do you wash fiber paper?


----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben R. McRee" <ben.mcree@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 8:07 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] How do you wash fiber paper?


I am making the transition from using a top-notch rental darkroom (which, unfortunately, has now closed) to a home darkroom. As I'm learning, there's much more involved than finding an enlarger! Right now I'm looking at the paper washing question. From what I can see there are two options: an archival washer (such as the Calumet or Gravityworks) or a large tray with a siphon (or even something as simple as the Yankee Print Washer on the B&H website: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=165262&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

My question is for those of you who print fiber paper: how do you wash it and are you happy with your method? For what it's worth, I print both RC and fiber, and typically have four to six fiber prints (a combination of 8x10 and 11x14) and perhaps twice than many RC prints from a typical session. And I follow the Permawash sequence with fiber paper: 5 minute preliminary wash, five minutes in Permawash, then final wash (at least 20 minutes).

Thanks for sharing your expertise!

--Ben


I don't think much of the Yankee tray. To be effective, a washer must provide a constant flow of water on both surfaces of the paper, this is especially necessary for fiber paper since the support absorbs a substantial amount of hypo.
I wash RC prints in a large tray with a Kodak Tray Syphon, generally one print at a time. This set up is OK for a few fiber prints but they must be kept separated by hand if more than one is washed. The tray syphon is better at circulating the water than the Yankee tray.
I use an ancient Zone VI "archival" washer for fiber. There are better washers. This one holds too much water and changes it too slowly, but its servicable. There are better "archival" washers, by which I mean washers that hold each sheet of paper individually so that both sides are washed. I am not familiar enough with the current stuff to recommend the best one but others here are. What you want is a washer which gives the greatest rate of flow at the paper surfaces but uses the least volume of water. Washing is done mainly in a very thin layer adjoining the surfaces of the paper or film. Since it is primarily a diffusion process its important that there be a constant refreshing of water at the surface so that the ratio of concentration stays high.
The procedure with Perma Wash is probably OK. Kodak recommendations are based on published research. Perma Wash I think recommends very short wash times after treatment but I have no idea how they determined these. Perma Wash and Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent are essentially the same except that Perma Wash uses Ammonium Sulfite and Kodak uses Sodium Sulfite as the main ingredient.
Prints can be tested for residual hypo by using a Silver Sulfide test solution. A test of this sort made on a scrap processed with the prints will tell you if your washing is sufficient.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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