Zone VI Archival Print Washer Parts

Greetings All
I Found a used Zone VI Washer 11x14 at a local camera store. In
pretty good shape at a good price. Seems to work fine but what's the
purpose of the two spare acrylic sheets that came with it ?? They're
about 17" X 4 1/2" but don't seem to fit anywhere in the washer unless
I remove some print dividers.
Any brilliant ideas ?? Thanks All..Jef

 

IIRC, they were so you could remove all the dividers, and you put those
things in. Then you could put one of their negative washer baskets in
there with the sheet film in the basket for washing sheet film. I never
bought the basket or thought of washing negatives in there. For paper,
the slow water flow rate is appropriate, but I prefer a much faster
water flow rate for washing negatives. IIRC, Kodak recommend 6 changes
an hour, but I may be mistaken. I generally wash the negatives in the
developping tank and have about one change per minute for 10 minutes. I
fill the tank with the negatives in there, jiggle the reels a little and
dump it. Then I let it refill and wash 5 minutes. Then I dump it, let it
refill, and wash another 5 minutes. This after one minute in KHCA, or
course.

 

I'm pretty sure one is used to lay on top of the vertical pieces when
it is full of prints and washing. The print edges have a tendency to
rise a little bit out of the water, and thats what it is used
for....to "hold them down".
At least I have 2 similar things for my 16x20 and 20x24 ZoneVI
washers.

Alexis

www.alexisneel.com

 

I have the same print washer. Yes the short sheets are intended to support
the sheet film washer (submerged) or for stacking roll film reels. To use
them you remove as many standard dividers as is necessary. The Zone VI
catalog says:
"With dividers removed, any of our print washers can be used for archival
washing of film on reels".
I usually stack reels, up to (3) deep, on the inserted short sheets. About
15-18 reels can be accommodated this way. I've used it since'82 and it works
fine.

Doug

 

No. It is true that such a thing is supplied with new washers, but I
believe the O.P. is talking about the thing you get a pair of with each
washer. I do not believe I have ever unwrapped them.

 

Don't these replace a pair of dividers so that you can drape a
16X20 across multiple slots ?


Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.darkroompro.com
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

 

Thanx all for help & suggestions..Jef

 

Does anyone know how to control the overflow? When the water reaches the top it pours over onto the floor. I hope someone wil reply.
thanks,
Victoria

 

I have a large Zone VI washer although I haven't used it
for a while. I always put mine in the bathtub. The only way
I found to prevent overflow is to adjust the filling rate to
it doesn't. In fact, from experiments I made long ago with
dye to determine the time it took the water to change I
mostly ran it to deliberately overflow. These washers work
OK but are not wonderful. For single prints I mostly use a
tray with a Kodak Print Siphon in it. This works quite well
for single prints or perhaps a tray with a number of small
prints that can move around freely, but is not so good for a
stack of larger prints. There is probably an ideal print
washer but I've never seen one.

 

I have a Zone VI print washer, 11"x14" size (i.e., it will wash prints
that size or a little larger, but not 16"x20".

The way I run it, tempered water flows in the hose connection at my
upper right into a plenum chamber. While in there, some of the dissolved
air comes out of solution. I wish it all did.

From the plenum, the water enters the main chamber through to rows of
small holes; one row near the top (but below the water level) and
another row near the bottom. After the water has washed the prints, it
exits the washing chamber through holes at the bottom into the exit
plenum. Picker did that because he believed hypo is heavier than water
and it would sink to the bottom. That happens to be nonsense, but it
does not really matter. The water rises up in the exit plenum and goes
out the overflow pipe.

_There is no reason whatever for the washer to overflow_. The exit pipe
is about one inch in diameter and the intake pipe is effectively about
3/8 inch. There is little point running much over 1/2 gallon per minute
through that, since washing is a diffusion limited process. But even if
you run a gallon a minute, it should never overflow.

What flow rate could you be running that the water comes into the tank
faster than can escape from the large drain pipe? I have never had it
come anywhere near the top.

The biggest problem I have with the washer is that not all the air comes
out of the water in wintertime in the entry plenum chamber, so some of
it comes out on the prints. I wrote to Fred Picker about that and he
said it was not a problem because the bubbles grow in size and float off
the prints and they do not impede washing. Well, I have studied them and
they can remain firmly in place for over 15 minutes, and they do impede
washing. So every 5 or 10 minutes I quickly raise each print and briskly
reinsert it to get the bubbles off. They are caused by mixing the cold
winter water with the hot water to get wash water the right temperature.
I tend to do my B&W processing at 75F because I cannot reliably get it
colder than that in the summertime, and I prefer to use the same
temperatures all year long.

 

Mine is the 16x20 washer. Very heavy. I tested it using
beet juice to see how long it took for the red color to
clear. At normal flow rates, that is, no overflow, it took
too long so when I was using it regularly I put in the
bathtub and let it overflow.

 

I did not have beet juice, so I used a few drops of a potassium
permanganate solution. (You do want to wash that out after testing.)

At 1/2 gallon per minute for my smaller size washer, it does take quite
a while to clear the tank. But at some point you are wasting water. My
temperature regulating valve (Lawler) does not regulate below about 1/2
gallon per minute, and for my tank it will clear in less than an hour. I
would guess the 16x20 model would require 1 to 2 gallons per minute. But
I would be surprised that the overflow pipe on the washer would not keep
up with that. A friend who used to be a professional (wedding)
photographer had the 16x20 size and his did not overflow. Edna Bullock
(Wynn's wife) used his East Street washer and that worked for her. I do
not think it overflowed, but that was over 30 years ago and I do not
remember how it worked.

When I am processing photo prints, I rinse the prints for 5 minutes
after the second fixer, run them through a 2% sodium sulfite bath for a
minute or so, and into a washing sink that has water running through it
(holding). I then tone the prints in selenium toner. Then hypo clear
again and wash. So by the time they are go into the print washer, a lot
of the hypo and silver thiosulfate complexes have already been removed.

That hypo test reveals they are washed enough after an hour or so in the
print washer.