How do YOU keep the dust off drying negatives? All my negatives seem to get dust stuck to them. After a final rinse I hang negatives up in my darkroom (actually my bathroom) and let them dry. I don't use forced air. I've tried squegee vs. non squegee and the only difference seems to be that squegeeing causes scratches and dust vs. just the dust...

Short of working in a class 100 clean room is there any simple (inexpensive) solution to the dust problem? I was thinking of something like a 4ft length of plastic pipe with some sort of dust filters on the end, but maybe I'm trying to solve a problem that shouldn't be there in the first place. Maybe some sort of dust trapping air filtration system?

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), April 08, 2002

Answers

We use a plastic coat closet container; cost about $15 to 25 depending upon store. Works fine, ran some wire from one side to the other, use wooden clothes pins to hang film. 40 to 50 students each quarter use the same structure with no problems. You might be able to find a small size depending upon the number of rolls you develop at a time. I have an old type film drying bag,plastic with a filter at one end in case one wanted to use a hair dryer. Can hold about 8 rolls of film. Hung it in the bathroom on the shower rod. I don't know if these are still available, but you might try Porter's as they still carry a lot of "old time" stuff. One other thought, do you shut the door and leave the room alone for 8 hours, or is this the only bathroom which folks are moving in and out of; which will create a lot of dust. If you can shut it off, run the shower before hanging negatives to see if that will help cut down dust that is just part of our lives.

-- Ann Clancy (clancya@attbi.com), April 08, 2002.

Whilst I do have a permanent darkroom I did have dust problems.The solution was a home made film dryer made from 3 large metal coffee cans,an old fan from a range hood & a foam filter glued to the inlet side of the fan. I can dry 3 films,on the reel,in about 30 mins with no dust or drying marks.I also stopped using photo flow or any wetting agent.I think you are on the right track in using tubes & a fan it is a similar idea to what I used & it works well.Try not using wetting agent;just give the film whilst still on the reel a good shake before completing the drying in your home made film dryer.

-- Melvin (bramley@nanaimo.ark.com), April 08, 2002.

I agree with Ann. Run the shower with hot water until the room is completely filled with humidity. This will cause most of the dust in the air to fall to the floor. Then about 5-10 minutes later, hang your film to dry and make sure no one goes back in the room until the film is dry. If your bathroom has an a/c or heater vent, make sure the vent is closed.

-- Michael Feldman (mfeldman@qwest.net), April 09, 2002.

I made a drying tent by using a clear shower curtain cut and held onto a pair of 2'x2'wood frames, one top and one bottom. Velcro holds the shower curtain in place. Each frame holds a fine mesh screen for air circulation. The assembly is held by a J hook from the celing. The top frame has several small 1" boards that hold clips for holding various sizes of film. The key is to carry the negatives to the tent still submerged in a final rinse container, open the tent and while holding the container of negs in the tent and hang the film.

I usually hang the tent in the bathroom and run the shower before hanging the film to help limit the chance of introducing any dust when I open the tent. I then can carry the tent back to the darkroom and hang it up out of the way.

-- James Chinn (JChinn2@dellepro.com), April 09, 2002.

I keep the dust out of the room I dry my negs in. If you can't do that, use an air filter with Ioniser, which eliminates the electric charge that mekes the dust particles float in the air. There are many different types and each one works differently, some are better and some worse. There are some devices that work with water filter.

-- George Papantoniou (papanton@hol.gr), April 09, 2002.

I'm baffled by all this. I heat with wood, have a dog, develop in a dusty laundry room, and never have a dust problem. I do have a water filter, and use Photo-flo at the recommended dilution. I do squeege with photo sponges, then simply hang the film from a wire between the rafters, then LEAVE THE ROOM! 20 minutes to an hour later, the film is dry and dust free. Note that there is no air circulation in the room. I hate plastic sleeves and still use glassine envelopes (be careful about age and humidity). A few blasts with an ear syringe after the neg is in the carrier, and voila, dust free prints. Are you sure your problem is dust picked up while drying, or could it be something earlier in the process?

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), April 09, 2002.

I use a clear plastic hanging shoe closet, $20 at Bed Bath & Beyond. It's about 12" square and just long enough for a roll of 24 exposure 35mm. I develop in my very dusty basement and have not yet had a dust problem. For 4x5, I have a small wire across the closet and hang a few clips from it. Small snack bag clips work great for 35mm. Edwal LFN with distilled water, no wiping or snapping.

I thought of building a drying cabinet with a fan, filter and maybe a 60w light bulb, but gave up since the closet works so well. Maybe if I needed the film in a hurry or did a lot of developing, I might consider building on. Home Depot has a 5 or 6" square plastic tubes, I think used as decorative covering for fence posts or porch pillars or something. More usable space than a round pipe would have, easier to cut and modify for a door etc.

-- Dave Mueller (dmueller@bellatlantic.net), April 09, 2002.

Conrad, your Karma must ionize the dust particles and make them stick to the dried Dektol in your print trays. Or perhaps all the dust is sucked out through the flue of your woodburning stove. Or, more likely, all your dust migrates to other darkrooms to haunt photographers who are obsessed with cleanliness.

-- Jim Rock (jameswrock@aol.com), April 09, 2002.

Actually, this is an exercise in electrostatics. Plastic anything is bad, even countertops. I do wipe my countertop down with water before doing any work. Ground the enlarger, keep the humidity around 50%, and avoid air movement when drying film. You'll never eliminate dust, but you can easily control where it goes and what it's attracted to.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), April 09, 2002.

I use Sprint's End Run, a photoflo type final rinse with distilled water. I think there is alchohol in it, so the negs dry very quickly, and have a glossy sheen. My darkroom has a furnace filtered air inlet on the other side of the room from the exhause fan, which is above and behind the sink. But I turn the fan off five minutes before I hang any film to dry, and tiptow out of the room, after they have had one light wipe with an End Run wet sponge. No water spots, no dust.

-- Phil Stiles (stiles@metrocast.net), April 10, 2002.

I too used to use a bathroom to hang negs. to dry. Then a number of years ago I bought a Durst UT100 film drying unit which I dismantle and pack away after use, (even though I have a converted darkroom).

Actually the bathroom is perhaps the worst room in a house for dust. OK, it doesn't see as much use as a living room or a kitchen but the use it does see is all dust generating. Body hair, skin particles are all deposited frrely and scattered about by vigorous rubbing with towels which also provides their own source of fibres.

If you also happen to have a lavatory in the same room then the use of modern soft toilet tissue is a splendid source of dust. Just stand in a beam of sunlight with a toilet roll held so that you can view it against a dark background then tear along the perforations and you'll see magnificent clouds of dust being freed.

Naturally all of this dust settles around the room, when you go in it all gets stirred up and lands again - some of it on your negs, and of course not merely landing there but 'glueing' itself into the soft emulsion!

Trevor Littlewood.

-- Trevor Littlewood (trevorlittlewood@aol.com), April 12, 2002.

My little addition

Dust is not jus in the air. But also in water. Try using packed mineral water for the final wash with wetting agent.

I do so :)

Middle

-- middle (middlegray@yahoo.com), April 27, 2002.

forgot "T"

:)

-- middle (middlegray@yahoo.com), April 27, 2002.

Perhaps this problem has more to do with when you hang the negs, rather than where. I hang them in the shower cubicle last thing at night with the door shut, so there is no-one going in and out stirring up the dust. However, once I put them in the plastic sleeves, every bit of dust and dog hair in the house jumps on to them. I think sliding them in and out of the sleeves creates static and that makes the problem worse. I would be very interested to know what glassine envelopes are, and if they are still available. Cheers.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), May 09, 2002.