> ones at the top just for convenience. I wash the prints for 30-45 minutes
> with the water flowing fast enough to stream out of the small holes at the
> edge of the tray, but no so fast that the water fills beyond the line of
> holes and spills over the edge of the tray.
> The random streams of water inside the tray keep the prints separated.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In Holland with all that water flowing over the dikes every minute? In
Mississippi surrounded by floods? I live in NYC where we're about to
change our toilets to low flow (1.5 gallons per flush) a
water-conservation measure so important the city is paying for the
installations, if you can believe! And that's not just in fun city.
World-wide, water is a problem, growing more serious daily. It
has even been said that the wars of the future will be fought for water,
etc. etc. etc. Besides which, our water bill is humungous!
In other words, I wouldn't use such a system even if it would work for
large floppy sheet *film* which it absolutely wouldn't, because the long
soaks, rising to surface, scratches on delicate emulsions, etc. etc.
etc.would be instant death. Hope someone will tell Mr. Waterworld that a
vertical "archival" *print* washer can be set up to operate with just a
trickle of water, or even still water with a couple of dumps. The prints
are separated, so that much of the wash can be, as noted by John or
Carson or someone, simply by the fixer oozing out into the less fixer-laden
water. Also, archival print washers in smaller sizes (up to 11x14 inches)
have come WAY down in price in the states, as people give up their
darkrooms & go digital, where the pollution happens at the factory where
the computers & software are made, not in your own home.
> Maybe a good solution, especially the idea of this random streams; one could
> probably just put a pipe with wholes in the normal washing tray connected to
> the tap with 'gardeners watersupply tools'
Yes. I do wash one sheet of film at a time in a tray with a *trickle* of
water out of a thin plastic tube (about 12 inches long) with holes drilled
across the length (visualize a piccolo), placed over one end of the tray,
holes in the bottom of the other end of the tray. Works fine for heavy
film (wash is done in the 10 minutes it take to expose the next sheet),
but not with the thin floppy. Reassurance that it doesn't in fact require
the kind of archival wash we've been trained to apply is most reassuring.
Judy