Years ago I dumped my film squeegee. I always thought it was a stupid idea to pull one’s wet, soft and easily damaged emulsion through a rubber wiper. It’s just asking for trouble! Then one day the inevitable happened and I threw it in the bin in disgust. Years later of course I could scan negatives and photoshop out the tram lines created, but life’s too short!
Since then I’ve always done what I call the “Vulcan Pinch” (ask Mr Spock – Star Trek), in other words I wipe the film between my fingers in one continuous movement to remove the excess water, then hang to dry. In the final rinse of the film I add a slug of Ilford Wetting Agent (Ilfotol), and all’s well. I often still get a few drying marks, but they are always on the non- emulsion side so easily removed with a film cleaner or like. No problems.
The few days ago I was reading “The Art of Black and White Developing” by John Finch. On page 321 he states, “Hang the film, do not wipe the film“! Why not? I thought to myself! Despite the fact I’ve been developing film for nearly 50 years, I’ve learned much from Mr Finch over the last year or so, his other advice has served me well, and my negatives are better as a result so I thought I’d try it. The last film I just developed, I washed as usual, did not perform my “Vulcan Pinch” manoeuvre, and guess what! I won’t say no drying marks at all but many many less – almost none! Never too old to learn!!!
S.H.O.U.T. 
Can you tell me how you clean your film please? I have bad experiences with film squeegies too. Might have to use the vulcan method.
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Hello Ian!
I find in practice that most drying marks don’t actually scan through, so I rarely bother these days! However, if for some reason I got bad drying marks, and/or if I was going to spend time making a darkroom print, if the film had been cut I would lay it on a piece of kitchen roll. With another piece or kitchen roll carefully folded to make a pad rather than a folded edge, I’d dab it into some methylated spirits, to damped it, not soak it, and wipe across in a continuous swipe, as lightly as possible so as to have good contact. I regularly used this method when I lived in an area with harder water and it worked a treat. I would tend to do this when the film was still in it’s full length, un-cut. I have no idea what the chemical consequences of doing this are to the film, all I can say for certain is that I have films that are now over 30 years old, and show no signs of problems that I can see, as a result of doing this! I ONLY do this to the NON emulsion side. That’s the “poor mans” method.
Commercially I’d recommend “Pec Pads” (lint free tissues) and “PEC12” (a film cleaner that is also an “emulsion cleaner”)
Hope that’s useful? – Cheers Andy
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I have a small cloth that I use for cleaning my glasses and with 70° alcohol I clean both sides. I was just wondering if there was a better way….
Thanks for the valuable insight.
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My squeegee disappointed me in a similar way. It was all good until one day when it suddenly wasn’t and I got scratches along most of a roll of 36 exposures. Ouch!
I’ve also “Spocked” the film, but now I use a salad spinner to expel most of the water. We have hard water here and, even after a final rinse with deionised water and then a dunk in some wetting agent (diluted with more deionised water) I still tend to get some drying marks. Even the salad spinner doesn’t eliminate them completely, but it’s much better. Oddly, it’s very rare for me to get drying marks on 120 film for some reason. It only really tends to affect my 135.
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Hi! Strangely I find the same thing too with 120/35mm. I quite often get light marks on 35mm, in truth I don’t bother too much, they often don’t “scan through” for me – but 120 I rarely get any at all! I wonder is it’s some physics magic to do with the film being thicker? I’ve also wondered if trying some stabilizer bath (as used in colour developing) would help in areas of hard water? A glass of red wine helps the situation but not as far as the film is concerned! 🙂 Cheers Andy
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I switched from squeegee to fingers as well. I like it, I get way fewer scratches. I’ve tried just letting the wet negs hang and I get much the same result as the finger swipe method — but the negs take noticeably longer to dry.
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Hi Jim!
I’ve only tried the “not wiping at all” routine once, and it certainly reduced the drying marks for me, yes it did take longer to dry, but then I tend to wander off and do other things and return hours later anyway! In reality dust is much more of a pain for me!! Cheers Andy
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I mix all of my chemicals with distilled water (these days I actually use water from my dehumidifier tank). I do my initial rinses with tapwater, and then a final rinse with distilled water plus a drop of wedding agent, then I spin the negatives still in the reel in a salad spinner. I leave my negatives in the reel and place it on top of the exhaust port of my air purifier. They are dry in a few minutes. I’ve used this method for years and gotten nothing but absolutely perfect negatives, not even the slightest mineral spots or dust.
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Hello! I’ve heard of people using the salad spinner before, but not a drier of sorts. Of course of heard of, although never used, a film drying cabinet, same idea I suppose. Interesting that you leave the film in the reel – I’m surprised it doesn’t stick! Proof is in the pudding though! Another idea to try! Thank you! Cheers Andy
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Before I stumbled upon drying in the reel, I used a homemade drying cabinet. I went to the local hardware store and bought several large cardboard moving boxes. I opened them up but didn’t fold closed the top and bottom as you’re meant to do. I lined them up end-to-end, overlapped the top/bottom leaves, and glued them together to make a single very tall box. Then I closed off the top and bottom of the resulting box as normal. I cut a square hole in top and bottom and taped a furnace air filter there to create a way for air to move but keep dust out. In the bottom I placed an ordinary light bulb on a nipple fixture, and in the top I put a strip of copper with holes punched along its length, meant for electrical or plumbing work, I can’t think of the name for it. I cut a long door in the side using a utility knife, leaving a cardboard hinge, and made a crude latch from some drinking straw pieces and a chopstick to slide into the straw. All the parts were easy and cheap to find at the hardware store. Building it from cardboard and duct tape made everything easy; when I needed to mount things or adjust things I just took out a knife and started cutting and taping. When I developed some film, I’d just turn the light on first, and soon a warm column of filtered air would create a chimney effect through the box, and I’d hang the negatives as people traditionally do. I donated this to the local high school’s darkroom class when I moved to a new house, but I never needed to replace it as I discovered drying in the reel with the cold filtered air from my purifier worked just as well. I have never had any issues with drying film in the reel, whether plastic Patterson reels or stainless steel, both have worked great for me. It also seems to make no difference to film curl. I thought at first hanging with weights in the tall box would surely give straighter negatives, but not so.
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Amazing! I (nearly) took another route. I went to a local art shop that was closing down and they had got to the point of selling the fixtures and fittings. I ended up buying a metal coat locker I guess you’d call it. It had a footprint of about a foot square, about 6 feet tall. It was as new, even had a rail at the top perfect for hanging the film. It did get as far as being in my “garden shed darkroom” that I had at the time, but never got adapted or used as a drying cabinet! Certainly your idea of boxes would be much lighter!! Cheers Andy
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