Wash prints in 100F water?

[Ken Nadvornick]

I live in Phoenix, and this time of year, my cold water tap will run at 100F, give or take.

I live northeast of Seattle, Washington in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

How warm is your tap water in the summer?

This time of year my cold water tap will momentarily peak at about 67F/19.4C. Mid-60s is the norm for the bulk of the summer months. During winter it drops to around 43F/6C.

Would you wash your prints in 100F water?

No, but I've done it in 80-85F/27-29C water when I lived in Southern California years ago. Fiber-based, too. Those prints survive today and at least look to be OK. Can't see them on a molecular level, though...

Any alternative suggestions?

Still water wash cycles in tempered water? Believe me, I know what a pain high temperatures are.

Here in the Northwest this year (to the left of the mountains) we are having one of the coolest summers anyone can remember. Because everyone here is used to 10+ months of continuous bad weather every year, they tend to jealously guard those 8- weeks each summer season. But this year they didn't come.

One of the weather guys on TV went back and checked and said we'd only had a "78 minute summer" this year. Meaning that temps had hit 80F/27C or better for only that many total minutes.

Right now it's in the lower 60sF outside. I have a small electric heater going in my basement darkroom as I type this, just to take the chill off...

Ken

[Ian C]

If you use a washing aid like Heico Permawash, the washing time can be much shorter than otherwise. That will make it unlikely that the paper suffers any ill effect at elevated washing temperature.

Also, the higher wash temperature might help clear the residual fixer faster than usual.

[Martin Aislabie]

I often wash Ilford RC paper in warmer water than 100F/38C - just to try and speed up the wash

Never yet experienced a problem - Ilford papers are very good for their mechanical robustness

Not sure I would do it to every manufacturers paper though, I have had some very soft FOMA papers

Emulsion feels "greasy" when handled just before it starts to slip off the backing paper

Martin

[pentaxuser]

It may be that resin coated B&W isn't as tough as RA4 paper - I don't know - but RA4 is processed at about 95F without problems and it seems that others are able to confirm that Ilford RC can stand it.

pentaxuser

[Monito]

Use stand washes (interleaving prints) with a few ice cubes tossed into the water.

See the thread about drought processing: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/9...m-drought.html

It would be responsible to conserve water in arid conditions such as prevail in Arizona.