Filtering Water

[Uncle Goose]

If you use distilled water you should have no impurities, distilled water is as clean as you can get. I use to have problems too with negatives getting full of stuff you don't want to get in the first place. My solution was simple, went to a hardware store, bought a long thick PVC tube (the ones they use for drainage and toilet connections) bought 2 end-caps you can take off and a few metal pieces to make the feet. I drilled a few small holes in the bottom and the top to vent the evaporating water and with a copper wire I made a system so I can hang my negatives. Since then I have virtually no contamination any more and it's cheap to make.

[arigram]

Take a sweater and pull out some of the little fibers. That's exactly what they are like.

And its not a drying problem. They appear before the drying, as I have mentioned. Plus, I have a DIY drying cabinet.

[Rick A]

Take a sweater and pull out some of the little fibers. That's exactly what they are like.

And its not a drying problem. They appear before the drying, as I have mentioned. Plus, I have a DIY drying cabinet.

One more thought--Did you use fresh photo-flo? Could be things growing in your bottle. Looks like everything else has been done.

Rick

[Mike1234]

And did you REPLACE the filters (not just clean them) and ensure there is a perfect SEAL in the filter holders - no water by-passing the filters? Final wash in DISTILLED water followed by a final rinse in PhotoFlo (fresh, as Rick said) mixed in DISTILLED water? If so I'm completely stumped.

Perhaps you should ask someone who knows what they're lokking at through a microscope to help identify the stuff... as another poster already suggested.

[arigram]

One more thought--Did you use fresh photo-flo? Could be things growing in your bottle. Looks like everything else has been done.

Rick

I don't think its any chemicals or such contamination. These are actual fibers, visible with the eye and movable by touch. I fill a plastic jug with store bought distilled water and five-six squeezes of the photo-flo bottle. I mix either with my gloved finger or with a plastic mixer. I take the roll, dip it inside and holding it by the two edges, I slowly move it from edge to edge, three-four times. I hang it immediately. I used to swiped it gently with my finger to get much of the water out but that created scratches some times. The water inside the jug will be filled with these little fibers which come in different colors, such as red and blue.
I thought that they somehow might be getting them from my clothing but couldn't trace the problem there.

[bdial]

I've seen similar things in water from jugs of distilled water. I taken to pouring it through a permanent type coffee filter.
I've only rarely seen the stuff show up on negs though.