- KIT PROCESSING (Continued) -

Working Procedure

Most commercial kits these days contain just three development baths. However as most also include a separate Stabilzer bath, it is actually a four bath process. But whether you are using 3 or 4 baths or up to 7 with weighing and mixing formulae, the set-up and working procedure is virtually the same. The kit contains: 1st developer (parts A & B), Colour Developer (parts A& B), Blix bath (parts A&B) and a single bottle of Stabiliser.

To start mixing, have your four bottles ready, clean and dry, and properly labled and a 300ml or 600ml beaker with a suitable stirring rod, ready for use. Normal cold water from the tap will suffice and whether you use a filter or not is up to yourself. Using water from a drinking water filter-jug is ideal.

Fill the beaker with appx. 120ml of water and pour part 'A' of the first developer in and stir until well mixed. Then pour in part 'B' and stir well. Finally top up the beaker to the 300ml or 600ml mark and give a final thorough stirring. On completion pour the made-up developer into the 1st Developer bottle and fit the top on firmly. It is preferable to store the developers in a cool dark place until required.

Repeat this procedure for the Colour and Blix baths. The stabiliser simply requires suffucient water poured into the beaker to start with, pour in the full contents of stabiliser and after a good stir, top up with water and after a thorough stir, pour into the stabilizer bottle. The developers can be used almost right away but it has long been considered prudent to stand, at least, overnight, for the developers to mature. This is probably best with W&M chemcals.

For actual processing you will need:

A plastic container such as a standard washing up basin or a suitable sized flower trough will suffice. One with no drain holes, obviously! As long as it will hold at least four 300ml or 600ml bottles and a developing tank, allowing them to remain standing while, at least, three parts submerged will do the job. You can get away with simply topping the basin/trough with hot water but it is much more practical to have some form of controlled heating element such as the excellent UNO Electronic Thermostatic heater. Some fish tank heaters will do as well but it must be able to cut in/out within +/- one degree, or better. You can simply stir the water every 5-10 minutes to keep an even temperature throughout the water bath but again an automated system such as a small fish tank air pump will do the job well.The normal air flow will probably be too strong but you can get a small plastic 'clamp' that fits onto the plastic tube and gives good control. Control the flow so as to just avoid splashing. Both Blix and Colour developer can cause permanant staining.

You can also use the air pump to aerate the bleach/fix bath, EDTA Iron formulae requires aerating to become active. Half an hour prior to processing should be enough but leaving the air going will do no harm. Obviously it is the bleach part that requires aerating but experience has proved that this does no harm to the Fixer, in a 'blix' mixture. If you don't have an air pump, with the Blix stored in a bottle half as large required give the bottle a good shake up for a few minutes.

Washing stages are carried out by complete changes of water every minute (inverse agitation every 30secs). A medium sized kitchen bucket will suffice. Fill the bucket with water at appx 40C. Stir for an even temperature. Use a 300/600ml jug so that the developing tank is filled in one go.

Set up your equipment so that everything is within one/two steps from each other. The bucket in the sink, close to the tap(s) for topping up. The basin/trough by the drainer, with the bottles standing in processing order (correctly labled). The processing tank close to one side. At appx. eye level, above the set-up, have your Timer and a clearly written/typed list of the working procedure and times, where you can see them easily.

With this sort of set-up it generally takes between 45-50 minutes for the water and the bottles to stabilise at 38C. If you have tap mixers start off with water at appx. 40C. Depending on whether you are using a well heated room or not, the temperatures should remain very stable once reached. Keep a photographic thermometer close to hand and check both the water bath and bottle (chemical) temperatures regularily. Checking the 1st. developer is the most critical.

Pre-Heating: Dry heating of the tank & film is preferable albeit many people have used warm water without problems. However some peole consider that soaking the emulsion with water could affect the strength of the developer when first poured into the tank. Likewise the water takes on the colour of the emulsion base and could be diluting something in the film that could affect the final results. Experience has shown that standing the tank into the water bath for a good 15 minutes, prior to processing, is suffcient.