I finally started setting up the film lab!!!

[James Steven Beverly]

I had to get going on this before I can start shooting so I have spent the last 4 days clearing out and re-arranging my studio so I can finally set up my film lab and like to old joke, BOY are my arms tired! The landlord formally started making repairs to the horrifingly BAD roof on my building after 3 months of my bitching about and his promoses to do so. I then proceeded to move all the furniture that I have gathered over the last few years as set pieces from shows ect and had been storing in that room. I REALLY have got to get rid of some of this stuff. To give you an idea, I had 5 sofas and 6 recliners in there and that's just the tip f the iceburg. I moved the stuff to the cargobay set for the now back-burnered "The Back Sky" sci/fi project I had been working on. I opted to back burner Black Sky in favor of one I wrote that unlike that particular project, we could do without inlisting the entire staff of ILM in order to complete the film (it has a LOT of anamation in it). We'll get back to it eventually but for now we want to go simple, ESPECIALLY because we'll be shooting on 35mm. It's a shame though, I put a Hell of a lot of work into preproduction in on that film INCLUDING several anamation tests loads of conceptual artwork and sculpures and full storyboards. But Se la vie. I suppose I shouldn't be depressed about it, it's not like we're abandoning Black Sky, we're just doing Blood Moon Rising first. So ONWARD!!

 

The cargobay space is about 70 feet long so there was enough room to get everything in and today, after 4 DAYS, that's exactly what I did. I lucked out in that I chose the ONE room in the studio that had 220vt power ran into it already WHICH I had forgotten about when I started clearing the room out. I thought I would have to go throught headache of running 220 into the room but as I was crest-fallenly looking over at the wall at what I thought was a big hole from a an impact that I must have inadvertly caused, I realized I was in actuallity a 220 outlet with the cover off. OH JOY, my heart soared with the wings of a thousand tiny butterflys! I had even found the cover earlier while I was cleaning. Thinking it was an complete plug, I was disappointed it was not because I figured I had saved a few bucks on installing the outlet I knew I needed to install. All in all though, I'm now glad it worked out this way.

 

The Bray processing machine and the step printer that was used on Star Trek TOS back in the day (I STILL think that is SO cool) that I bought and picked up in California way back in May got moved into the studio last week from their storage at my dad's warehouse/private car shop. That was a harrowing experience in it's self as It was me and my brother, alone, dunbuggying a forklift with no working brakes and designed with little tires for inside, smooth, flat concrete floors across the dirt surfaced roads of the complex where my building is which roughly resembles the surface of the moon and I don't mean Tranquility base. My brother driving and apperently channeling Al Unser while I stratled the 2 forks holding onto a machine that cost me an arm and a leg and I couldn't replace even if I had the money to do so because they NEVER come up for auction, all because we also couldn't find any tie down straps. Surfing on the forks of a forklift that has no suspension while trying to balance a heavy load as it runs along a road Lewis and Clark wouldn't have wanted to use, definately gives one cause to ponder one's mortality. As I watched the dust swirl into twisting, little tornados while ground rushed under the forks below me and my maniac brother attempted to push the gas pedal through the floorboard of the small propaine powered craft, I suddenly realized what it must have been like to have been a door-gunner an a Huey in 'Nam. Fortunately I didn't slip off and get ran over. The only casualty was a film mag for the Bray that fell off as we bumbed a concrete step while sloeing to a stop. The lid popped off, but the fall didn't damage anything although it did piss me off.

 

The floor in that room has begun to sag a bit in the room, (probably from the weight of all that furniture and the massive rains we had last year) and tomorrow I plan to take a large hydraulic bottle jack I have under there and see if I can shore it up a little. I then plan to seal the room as tight as a drum because we have a tremendous dust problem in El Paso, insiped, ultra fine dust that get's ito every opening and as we all know, film is alergic to dust. I also plan to put a small refridgerated air window unit into the room because in the summer it swelters at 110 deg. here and film isn't very happy about that eather, ESPECIALLY when your trying to process it in baths have to remain exactly at 81 degrees. I will have to run a little bit of plumbing too bit that's minor, paint, deep clean as well as install the storage shelves ect and build a darkroom area. I also plan to put my flatbeds in there tool as there is enough room bit I'm not sure at this point. I do think, however, Ive solved the problem of storing large numbers of film cans during the editing process. I got this 5 and a half ft high, very heavy-duty, cricular metal rack with circular, edged metal shelves that are segmented for selling nuts bolts washers ect. when I looked at it colser, I realized a 400ft film canister would fit perfectly into a segment and because the 5 selves are round you could fit the same number of cans in a 3 x 3 space between the to flatbeds that would take up an entire wall otherwise. The segments are even already numbered for me! All let anyone who's inertested updated on this thread as to my progress. I'm excited. I can hardly wait till I get finished and start processng some film. B)

[David Mullen ASC]

Post some pictures of the set-up so we get a sense of the size of the thing. How are you going to deal with chemical waste disposal? (I assume mall photo labs have the same issue). It must be illegal to dump anything into the sewer system. Is there a way to reclaim silver in such a set-up? I guess it's probably not enough to be worth it.

[David Venhaus]

There are small scale silver recovery units. They sell a 5 gallon one at B+H photo - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...egoryNavigation

 

At least you could make a bit of money back on the silver. And congratulations and the best of luck with your lab.

[James Steven Beverly]

Post some pictures of the set-up so we get a sense of the size of the thing. How are you going to deal with chemical waste disposal? (I assume mall photo labs have the same issue). It must be illegal to dump anything into the sewer system. Is there a way to reclaim silver in such a set-up? I guess it's probably not enough to be worth it.

 

I definately will. I should have taken some "Before" pics just to show the Herculeian task it was to unload the stuff. As I am not doing this "commercially" (although I might do some small runs of film for select people to help off set costs), it falls into the same category as having a home darkroom. Although I'm sure the EPA isn't happy about it, it's not illegal to dump the relatively small amounts this level of processing will produce into the sewer system. If it starts to become a problem or we start pocessing a lot of film, I'll look into recycling alteratives volunteerally. I sure don't want to contribute to the world's environmental prolems if I can help it. I may start with the reclaming kit David A Venhaus provided the link to.

 

Today I fulfilled my prophecy to go were men have feared to tread for the last half century, the dreaded and mysterious space beneath the studio floor! Armed only with a BHBJ (Big-assed hydraulic bottle jack) cinder blocks, a small sledge hammer, several short pieces of wood and plywood shims, ad a pair of garden spades, I ventured into the unknown like a poor man's Indiana Jones. It took me a while to find the BHBJ, which is one more reason I REALLY need to clean up and organize the the studio, cuz the damn thing is the size of a short fire extiguisher and not easily lost anthough I managed to do so. One of my many hidden talents. At the back of the building is an opening (I presume dug by a dog at some point) just big enough to allow me to squeese my beef fed behind under the rear wall. Slowing I moved into the ominous opening, my garden spades at the ready in anticipation of black widow spiders and field mice that might cross my path. Now eather the sight of me with 2 small garden shovels in my hands struck such fear into them that any creature who spied my manly presence from the dark recesses of their oadious bastions immediately fled in terror OR the fact that it's winter and these creatures generally hybrenate in winter, I'm not sure which although I prefer to think the former, but no vermin dared to poke it's beady little head out!

 

The space under the floor opened up a bit once I cleared the outer wall so that I could crawl on my belly like a soldier during the battle for Iwo Jima. As my eyes adjusted to the light all my worst fears were comfirmed. The cross beam that held the floor joices up was sagging dramatically. Apparently several the cinder block pilings that supported the cross beam had broken and lay crumbling. The ones that they had installed 30 or 40 odd years ago were too small and with the seepage from last year's "Hundred year rains" , they had failed. Undaunted, I grabbed my trusty BHBJ and the 1/4in metal plate I had broght to help spred the load out at the top of the jack piston and began to jack the support beam back into position. I had brought a 3in thick concrete footing and dug out the area inder the center of the sag with my garden spades to make it level and then placed the footing down and set the BHBJ on top so it wouldn't slip or sink into the dirt. As I jack the beam up, the building groaned threatingly. At this point I realized that I hadn't told any one where I was or what I would be doing so if the building collapsed on top of me, my body wouldn't be found for weeks. Now having a new found and VERY healthy respect for the 20 some odd tons a foot and a half above my head, I called my mother and jacked more slowly, stopping several times to wedge wood pieces onto the pilings that remained intack and the ones I had replaced. Creaking and popping, the beam slowly moved back into position, OR so I had thought. I decided to check the floor inside and see where we were at so I wouldn't damage the walls, tile and such.

 

 

I dragged myself out though the doggy entrance and bounced around front to the main door. I rushed inside expecting to see a perfectly straight floor, only to see roughly the same situation I had an hour before. The floor still sagged dreadfully. Annoyed I shot back outside and into my hole in the ground. I scrambled back to the BHBJ and throwning caution to the wind, I began to jack furiously with a fire in my eyes and a determination that I WOULD get the lab floor straght and level or DIE trying!!! A growl from the building jerked me back into reality and common sense regained a foothold in my passion. I looked over and saw I had jacked the beam a good 4 inches above the nearest pilings and wooden shims. Cautiously I moved to to the piling and added more shims, hammering them firmly into place with the small sledge. I moved away to get a more overall view of my progress. The hard dirt had begun to liquify into fine dust that filled the air as well as my nose and mouth. Although I had a dust mask on, as I said before, this dust has an insiped way of creeping into every opening. I coughed and hacked but carried on. I looked down the line of the beam and noticed that the sag although significantly reduced, STILL had quite aways to go. This surprised me because I had been jacking on it for a long time, and those of you who know what it's like to jack and jack and jack and jack and NOT be able to get it up into the position you wanted, know how dis-hearting that can be! But still, I refused to surrender to the stubborn structure and went back to jacking, as most of us would. I redoubled my efforts, and slowly the beam began to rise, SUCCESS AT LAST!!! I was just at that moment I heard something crash onto the floor above me. Sensing desaster due to the fact that the room was completely empty, I thought this might be a good time to check my progress inside.

 

I scrambled out from under the building and dashed inside expecting to see the remainents of a wall broken from intense stress lying on the cracked and broken floor, instead, to my great relief, I found that the stand that I had placed under a neon light fixture that had pulled loose from the ceiling had compressed against one of the neon tubes and shattered it, Proof positive I WAS MAKING PROGRESS! I readjusted the stand and rechecked the sag. The space under the left interior wall were it had separated from the floor was reduced significantly however the opposite wall which originally had a separation of about half the first wall, didn't seem to be that much improved, I found this odd. I knew I had to keep going, keep jacking up that wall until it was perfect, but as I went back outside I noticed he sun was dipping low towards the mountains. I was running out of time.

 

For a brief while, I conned myself into believing I would run a worklight under the studio and work until the job was done but fatigue and the cold were starting to take thier toll. I crawled back under the building for the 3rd time and wearily drug myself back to the BHBJ. I began to jack again, shimming the pilings until I suddenly noticed the pile of shims had almost reached the hight of a full cider block. This would prove to be very unstable over time. I had jacked the crossbeam up nearly 12 full inches! That's a Hell of a sag! I was quite relieved I had caught it before the floor collapsed altogether. I left the BHBJ in place and pulled out the shims, replacing them with a second cinder block on eather side, first one side then the onther and then in the dimming light I jacked the beam up a bit more, shimmed it and again checked it's line. It looked perfectly straight at last! But remembering the the little changed separation on the right interior wall, I looked down the beam in the opposite direction and for the first time notice a second, far less dramatic sag in the beam, but the sun had begun to sink behind the mountian by this time and it was getting darker and colder. Out of materials and energy, I knew I had no choise but to end my day and return tommorow.

 

Exausted and filthy, I left my tools in place and crawled slowly out from under the building with every muscle in my body sore a day old cut. I picked myself up off the cold ground and walked stiffly around to the front door. The wind now icy, bit into my face. I went inside and again checked the floor. I was please to find the separation on the lefthand wall had dissapeared but as I suspected the righthand wall was still not in contact with the floor. All in all though I was very pleased with the day's work. None of the tile cracked or popped loose and the separation on the right wall had been redused significantly. I spent the next hour or so cleaning up glass and reorganising a few things in the relative comfort of the studio, then I through a sheet over my car seat and headed home.

 

I will take the remaing cider blocks I have left here at the house, load them into the Explorer and venture back into the land of Nod tommorrow to finish up my quest for a flat floor. I then plan the begin construction on plugs to fill in the extrainous doorways and windows that the room now has. I plan to design them so they can be removed in the future should we decide to do so, but for now they will be light and air tight. I also plan to install a set of doors in the large 5 ft wide soorway opening at the front of the room so the machines can be taken in and out easily. This should take 3 or 4 days to complete, but will be well worth the time.

 

Once that is done I will move in to exaust fans and installig the A/C unit. The weather here shows signs of warming already and soon summer will be apon us, plus I want to be sure the A/C unit is completely sealed and the window is removed before the rains come. The roofers are schedualed to return tommorow so let's keep our fingers crossed and hope they can finish up before the rains come as well. I'll report again tomorrow! B)

[Charles MacDonald]

let's keep our fingers crossed and hope they can finish up before the rains come as well. I'll report again tomorrow! B)

I hope you have been keeping your filmo, or bolex handy to documnet this saga :)

[K Borowski]

I'm guilty of not properly disposing bleach and fixer properly when I first set up. I resorted to storing it in bottles but ran out of bottles.

 

You really SHOULD properly dispose of it, which consists of nothing more than running it through a bucket with steel wool, and then dumping the chemicals down the drain and recycling the silver for $$$.

 

I know a guy that worked in a crash-test lab right before they stopped using VNF, and he estimated that there's about an ounce of silver per every 400 ft. of VNF. That's $7 worth of silver at current prices, so get one of those cartridges if you can. They can be tricky to set up, but it's child's play compared to plumbing the machines. That can be a real PITA to get right.

 

Your machine processed Star Trek? That IS cool. Take some stills and scan them so we can see, OK?

 

Be CAREFUL with 220. My C-41 machinery runs off of 220, and, for some reason, the floor of the basement of the studio wasn't giving me a ground, so when I had the processor and printer on at the same time I was getting zapped, NOT fun. Have a qualified electrician come in and ground it if you aren't up to it yourself.

 

ALWAYS take the rollers out every night, if this is practical to do. Otherwise you can get streaking on the film. It can be a pain, but if you get fungus growing, especiallly in the wash tank, it's a real chore to get them out.

 

Make sure you get anything valuable off of the floor around the machinery. Water and chemicals can and do leak occasionally, and you don't want to get chemicals all over some nice curtains or furniture.

 

Before you do any important film, get TEST STRIPS, an acid adjustor (ususally sulphuric acid, IIRC) and a basic adjustor (sodium or potassium hydroxide) for adjusting the reactivity of the chemistry.

 

Try to get as much leader as you can to test for streaking before you run important film through. Get a lot of roller transport cleanup film (don't know the appropriate size for your machine) and use it often to avoid scratching negatives, and LOL, drop me a line if you ever start doing ECP-2, because I will definitely send some your way. Need a couple thousand rolls of C-41 processed as a trade? ;-)

 

Email me karl [dot] borowski [at] case [dot] edu if you need any further info. I've never done ECN-2, but other than remjet, its essentially the same process as with C-41, so I am quite knowledgeable about pushing, pulling, and replen rate troubleshooting.

[James Steven Beverly]

I hope you have been keeping your filmo, or bolex handy to documnet this saga :)

 

Actually a Kinor 35H and a Konvas 1m, gotta love those Commiecams. The only problem with filming it is until the lab is complete I can't process the film. :D I will take some digital stills and maybe some video footage.

[Paul Bruening]

Oh, Captain, my Captain,

 

Please factor in chemical weight. You'll have the tanks in the film line plus the replenisher tanks.

 

Congrats on the set up. I'm looking forward to seeing some pics

[Paul Bruening]

OCMC,

 

BTW, are you going to The Yellow God for chemicals or do you have another source?

[James Steven Beverly]

I'm guilty of not properly disposing bleach and fixer properly when I first set up. I resorted to storing it in bottles but ran out of bottles.

 

You really SHOULD properly dispose of it, which consists of nothing more than running it through a bucket with steel wool, and then dumping the chemicals down the drain and recycling the silver for $$$.

 

I know a guy that worked in a crash-test lab right before they stopped using VNF, and he estimated that there's about an ounce of silver per every 400 ft. of VNF. That's $7 worth of silver at current prices, so get one of those cartridges if you can. They can be tricky to set up, but it's child's play compared to plumbing the machines. That can be a real PITA to get right.

 

Your machine processed Star Trek? That IS cool. Take some stills and scan them so we can see, OK?

 

Be CAREFUL with 220. My C-41 machinery runs off of 220, and, for some reason, the floor of the basement of the studio wasn't giving me a ground, so when I had the processor and printer on at the same time I was getting zapped, NOT fun. Have a qualified electrician come in and ground it if you aren't up to it yourself.

 

ALWAYS take the rollers out every night, if this is practical to do. Otherwise you can get streaking on the film. It can be a pain, but if you get fungus growing, especiallly in the wash tank, it's a real chore to get them out.

 

Make sure you get anything valuable off of the floor around the machinery. Water and chemicals can and do leak occasionally, and you don't want to get chemicals all over some nice curtains or furniture.

 

Before you do any important film, get TEST STRIPS, an acid adjustor (ususally sulphuric acid, IIRC) and a basic adjustor (sodium or potassium hydroxide) for adjusting the reactivity of the chemistry.

 

Try to get as much leader as you can to test for streaking before you run important film through. Get a lot of roller transport cleanup film (don't know the appropriate size for your machine) and use it often to avoid scratching negatives, and LOL, drop me a line if you ever start doing ECP-2, because I will definitely send some your way. Need a couple thousand rolls of C-41 processed as a trade? ;-)

 

Email me karl [dot] borowski [at] case [dot] edu if you need any further info. I've never done ECN-2, but other than remjet, its essentially the same process as with C-41, so I am quite knowledgeable about pushing, pulling, and replen rate troubleshooting.

 

No, it's the Step priter that was used on Star Trek also one of the flatbeds I have was used to edit The Producers (musical version). I love knowing some of the history of the stuff I've got. It gives you a connection to the past. I appreciate all your mantaince advice and will definately take it to heart. The machines are all strictly 35mm and I do plan to keep the lab rather sterial and spartian. As for the 220, it's already there as I mentioned in my report but I haven't tested it to make sure it's functional, I did however find out from my dad, who has a lot of expirence with industrial equipment that I my need to beef up the 220 if my machine draws more amps than the outlet is set up for. The outlet has slots that angle in were as the plug on the processor has spades that are parrallel. I thought I just needed to buy an adaptor but apparently te different designs are for different amp rateings, so I'm going to do some research and see what I need. The problem with the room loosing power reared it's ugly head again so I'll have to bring in an electrician anyway and I'll let him check everything while he's there. I'm sure we can work out something on your processing needs. Let me get this thing set up and running and let me and my guys figure out what in the Hell we're doing then I'll see what we can do for you. Doing a push process shuoldn't be anymore trouble than standard processing once we learn how to do it with the equipment we have. I have chemicals for both ECN-2 and ECP-2 as well as detailed instructions on each that came with the machine. There's enough to do a LOT of film so that part of Blood Moon Rising's production is covered in spades. It also came with a slew of spare parts, which I'm sur will make my life a LOT easier down the line. Now I just need an optical printer, an edge coding machine, a 35mm projector and screen and some way to record the mag tracks, (a dubber would probably work) and I'm set equipment-wise. There's still little things like print stock, film cans, splicing tape, grease pencils, markers, labels ect, ect, ect but I'll gather this stuff up as I can afford to get it.

 

Anyway on to my report. SUCCESS AT LAST!!!!! I crawled back into my dank, dark hole and finished leveling the lab floor! I only had to spend 2 hours under the building today leveling the remaining minor sag but it was 2 hours sent express mail directly from Hell, much colder and my muscles promosing to get me back for 6 days of abusing them when we got home. As I sit here writing, they are keeping their promise! My knees and elbows also fell casualties to a combined 10 hours of crawling around on hard earth like a drunkard. The leveling proccess it's self went very smooth dispite this. I, now being an expert int the use of a BHBJ, simply jacked, leveled and shimed my project to fruition. There was one casualty (Iside from my elbows and knees) however, one of my beloved gardening spades was lost beneath the liquified sand and dust resulting from my crawling over the hard ground and returning it to a thick layer of soft dirt. The spade must have been buried under this layer and lost for ever. Dispite a valiant search by yours truly, it was clear , I would never see it again. The sun was again dropping behind the mountain and begrudingly the cold forced me to give up the search. Reluctantly, I gathered my remaing tools and materials and left the underworld for the open air and last rays of sunlight left in the day never to return to the great beneath unless some other similar desater should befall us. I lamented the loss of my trusty spade knowing I would now have to face black widow spiders and feield mice with only on spade but I took heat in the knowlege that the spade was not lost in vain. The floors in the lab, costume room and prop storage were now perfectly level and the Pilings underneathe the studio would stand up to heat, cold, rain and wind for another 40 years or more. Reinforced and properly set the pilings stood as testiment to the work I had done with the spade. I gathered my tools from the ground before me and went inside. I took a few minute to warm myself beside a Halogen workight the carried on with the task at hand. The floor problem solved, I pondered how best t deal with the extrainious doorways that inendated the room. I took measuerments and began to devise a plan. I would build plugs to seal the doorways that could be opened should we decide we needed to use the opening again.....HUMMMMM, plugs that can be opened for access. They have a name for such a thing what where they called? Wait a minute, it's coming to me...I HAVE IT! They're called DOORS! In a stroke of shear genius I decided to fill the doorways with doors. Having gathered several doors for sets, I found the approriate sizes and one by one dragged them to the lab. I test fitted them into the spaces they would occupy. To my amasement they fit perfectly, go figure. I will begin installation tommorrow! Because it was a holiday and I was freakin' exausted, I knocked off early and headed home. The roofers didn't show up today as promosed but I choose to attribute that to to a deep abiding respect for the late Dr. King on thier part and also choose to assume they will be at the studio bright and early to resume thier duties tommorow. I will report again.

[K Borowski]

James, I'd like to recommend that you do NOT do any ECN-2 for now. Stick to ECP and learn what to do when there are problems with the machine before you even start doing negatives. I learned this lesson the hard way with C-41, and my machine isn't even roller transport, like yours is. If you have 10,000 feet of film you're running through the machine, and something goes wrong, you have to fix it, in the dark, if you want to save ANY of it.

 

Therefore, take this advice and don't start doing negatives (at least important negatives) until you've had the chance to run several thousand feet of print film through. I know this sounds over-cautious, and is much more "boring" than doing negatives, but you can learn a lot in the meantime about balancing colors on print film (no where NEAR as easy as it looks) and learn about controlling density and chemistry that way.

 

Get as much literature as you can and make friends with lab owners. I have many a night had to call someone for advice on dealing with machine trouble or chemical mixing trouble. It's easy to make mistakes that cost a lot of money, see.

 

Remember on Star Trek how there are shots with big black chunks in the frame? I'm pretty sure that is remject. Granted Star Trek was shot before ECN-2 came out, but I'm sure if you aren't careful, you can get problems with Remjet today as well, which will be nigh near impossible to fix without costly film scanning and laser output.

 

Make absolutely sure you know what you are doing before you run a movie through it. Unless youre chemistry is absolutely in control,l and consistently so, you are going to give yourself hell when you go to print the negatives and rebalance the color.

 

Since you say the printer was used for Star Trek, this could mean all of your equipment is the original ECN (not ECN II) processn and whatever the print process before ECP-II was. Find out from the former owner if they're updated to modern chemistry, and also make sure that the modifications are still good.

 

There will be different replen rates probably between the old and new processes. New temperatures too. Check each tank with a thermometer, an accurate one, and make sure it's not mercury until you are certain the machine's indicated temperature is in fact accurate and in agreement with what the machine thinks its temperature is. Then make sure the replen rates are set to what the former owner had them set to.

 

Then you can start running test film. Get a densitometer if you don't already have one, and make sure that, with the replen pumps on, your film is dead even density from the first foot out to the 10,000th foot out. If it's not you'll have to play with the pumps until they give you consistent density and color balance.

 

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have this all in control before you start. It's hell printing stills that are slightly off spec to their proper color balance, but when it needs color balance from shot to shot to shot, i.e. timing, you want to make it so that you only have to tweak the printer lights with each new emulsion batch, or at most when you have a shot that is over or underexposed that needs to be color timed differently than the properly exposed shots do.

 

If you keep it consistent, you'll only need to time shots that were shot in one condition and need to look like another differently than the majority of your film needs to be run.

 

~Karl

[Matthew Buick]

Is the silver in film actually real silver, or is it some sore of ''fake''?

[K Borowski]

Is the silver in film actually real silver, or is it some sore of ''fake''?

 

It's real. That's why it's foolish dumping bleach and fixer down the drain. Not to mention silver is a precious metal with a steadily rising price. This makes preserving and recycling silver very important. It's no where near as easy recycling it from our own sewers and garbage dumps.

 

Silver is also a polutant, albeit a mild one when it's in compound form, like AgBr, AgI, or AgCl, which is why, technically, you are required by law to pull it out of the bleach and fixer before you dump them down the drain.

 

With color, of course, since the silver is bleached out and the silver halides are fixed out, you're left with a pure dye image, unless you're giving the negative a bleach bypass, which leaves the black metallic silver embedded in the emulsion.

 

Regards,

 

~Karl

[Matthew Buick]

OMG!!1! OMG!1!!1 I'M RICH!!1 RICH BEYOND MEASURE!!1!1!!!1!

 

 

BTW, do you think if a program was started where the silver is given back to the manufacturer after processing and so on it would reduce the cost of shooting film?

[Matthew Buick]

AgBr, AgI, or AgCl.

 

Mind if I ask what the formulas mean, I've missed a LOT of science lessons due to chronic illness, and want to learn as much as I can for my...

 

...GCSE OF CERTAIN DEATH!!!!!!

 

*OMINOUS D00M MUSAK*

[Bryan Darling]

OMG!!1! OMG!1!!1 I'M RICH!!1 RICH BEYOND MEASURE!!1!1!!!1!

BTW, do you think if a program was started where the silver is given back to the manufacturer after processing and so on it would reduce the cost of shooting film?

 

 

It is called a Silver Recovery Service and you have to pay them to pick up your silver from the silver recovery units and then they process it. Then you are credited something back for the silver. However, it is more an expense, not a method to generate money.

[K Borowski]

Mind if I ask what the formulas mean, I've missed a LOT of science lessons due to chronic illness, and want to learn as much as I can for my...

 

...GCSE OF CERTAIN DEATH!!!!!!

 

*OMINOUS D00M MUSAK*

 

Or maybe from chronically posting stupidity on the internet. . .

[Charles MacDonald]

OMG!!1! OMG!1!!1 I'M RICH!!1 RICH BEYOND MEASURE!!1!1!!!1!

BTW, do you think if a program was started where the silver is given back to the manufacturer after processing and so on it would reduce the cost of shooting film?

If you look at Kodaks site, I think it is somewhere uder "Kodak Enviromental services" they used to have a listing on the amount of silver that you can pull out of different types of Kodak Film. it si not all that much, now that the price of silver has leveled (it was a bit more way back when the Hunt brothers managed to corner the market and doubled the then pric eof almost all film.)

 

Normally the labs do this with specila equipment, the simpist is "siver recovery cartiges" which are not much more than 5 Gallon Buckets filled with UN-OILED steel wool. The silver comes out and IRON goes into the solution. Their are also electrytic units which allow the reuse of the chemicals.

 

Last time I looked I noticed that Kodak has outsourced the procesing of the Silver recovery cartriges, which probaly means the shift to digital has cut their use of silver somewhat. (or it could be the EPA rules make it too much of a hastle)

 

Often the mililab chemical supliers will pick up the used chemicals and use the silver to ofset the price of fresh soup. Look at Fuji-Hunts site .

http://www.fujihuntusa.com/html/mini_mark7L.asp

http://www.hallmarkrefining.com/

 

 

Mind if I ask what the formulas mean, I've missed a LOT of science lessons due to chronic illness,

Ag = Silver

Br = Bromine

I=Iodine

Cl=Clorine

 

AgBr = Silver Bromide

 

Which is what makes the film light sensitive. You can figure out the rest of the formulas

[Andy Sparaco SOC]

You are going to learn about many, many new things unforunately none of them which have anything to do with making films.

 

Best of luck and may the great yellow father above smile upon you but you are out of your mind.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Most labs use electrolytic silver recovery, where the silver plates out onto a cathode.

 

Here is a link to Kodak's environmental information, including silver recovery:

 

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jht...pq-locale=en_US

 

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jht...pq-locale=en_US

 

Silver is a valuable resource that should NOT just go down the drain, even from a small lab operation.

[K Borowski]

Silver is a valuable resource that should NOT just go down the drain, even from a small lab operation.

 

John: agreed. At the same time though, you would not believe how many pieces of B&W paper (some fixed some not) go into the trash at college and high school photography programs every day. I'd be surprised if there were any less than 5 ounces of silver in a full-sized trash bag.

 

The same goes for B&W film. With just a little color bleach one could recover all of the silver in scrap B&W footage, or even old prints. Yet I've seen these routinely tossed by high schools, and theatres, and libraries.

 

As far as electrolytic silver recovery goes, is this a better method for recovering silver than just the standard bucket filled with steell wool type of cartridge? Then there's the matter of disposing the stuff. I've filled 6 buckets now, to capacity with silver sludge, but have not been able to locate a proper disposal site. Does Kodak or do you know of any companies that specialize in silver recovery for labs? I can probably store at least 50 such buckets without trouble, but I want to "cash them in" before the price of silver returns to its normal price.

 

Regards,

 

~Karl Borowski

 

 

 

Sorry, I found the info in your links John. I thought those were just descriptions of electrolytic silver recovery equipment. Thanks for the helpful info. I have a couple of hundred dollars in those buckets I've been trying to cash in for a while now.

[James Steven Beverly]

You are going to learn about many, many new things unforunately none of them which have anything to do with making films.

 

Best of luck and may the great yellow father above smile upon you but you are out of your mind.

 

Are you talking to me? If so, without learning to process film, I couldn't afford to make films, besides in MY opinion setting the "look" of the film (bleached out, Vivid colors, high or low contrast, whatever) is a VERY inportant element of elisiting an emotional responce from an audience. Although, you do bring up one interesting point, The great yellow father above? So basically in your mind's eye, God looks a lot like Homer Simpson....and YOU'RE telling me I"M crazy. B)

[James Steven Beverly]

I DO plan to recover the silver if possible, as I said previoiusly, although THAT sorta suprises me. I figured the sulferic acid would be more of a problem, but I'm new at this.

 

Now on to my report. Today, I spent 4 hours looking for doors, hinges, door handles and other materials to get the doors installed. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLLLLLY gotta get things more organized around the studio. 4 HOURS looking for parts!!! I did manage to solve one very inportant problem though. The main entrance to the room has an odd sized opening. Far to wide for a single door and far to narrow for 2 normal sized doors. I thought at first I would have to cut down a pair of doors to fit but I was rumaging through a storage shed I on the back-lot of the studio and found half a folding door set. (I save all kinds of oddball crap like this for just such an occation... maybe I actually am out of my mind) I knew immediately THIS WOULD WORK!!! I dragged the half inside, put it together with my 36in door, slid it into the opeing and Whola! It fits like a glove (Well not OJs glove, but a glove of someone who DIDN'T commit murder and get away with it). The irony of the whole situation is that after looking for 4 hours, I STILL didn't have enough perts to complete the installations. I've been working on a bedroom in my house and by working I of course mean hauled a bunch of materials and tools from the studio down to the house, put them in the bedroom and ignored them for the last 6 months, so tomorrow I'll see what I've got hiding in there. I plan to install an exaust fan to get ride of any chemical odors and fumes and help control dust, so I'll look for that as well as I couldn't find it anywhere in the studio DISPITE 4 hours of searching. I will also tackle the problem of the large open "window" (no glass or shutters at this point) between the lab and the lower sound stage. I would like to retain the window's ability to be open while shooting so we can stick a camera in the lab as the sound stage is narrow and very long, but sealed tight during processing to keep the climate controlled and light & dust out. I want to be able to turn the whole lab into a darkroom if need be. I'll have to come up with soomething for that one. I was colder than a witch's t*t in a brass bra in the middle of January in an igloo in the Antartic IF the Antartic were in deep space today so I knocked off about 7 and headed home. All In all, it was a less productive day than I would have liked it to be BUT I did a lot of thinking about how what I was going to do over the next few days and I did solve some major headaches which is always good so to quote Scarlett O'Hara "Tomorrow it another day!" and I'll be BACK on it tomorrow. Next report then. B)

[James Steven Beverly]

OCMC,

 

BTW, are you going to The Yellow God for chemicals or do you have another source?

 

The second reference to a yellow god (actually the first but I missed this post the first time around). :blink: I don't know these folks. Who is this Yellow God of which you speak? Do you have a website address? B)

[David Venhaus]

I think that's a reference to Kodak.