What Causes a Film Processor to Feel Gritty?

Whether you develop your own film at home or run a commercial lab, dirt, grit, undissolved chemistry and dust can gum up the works, causing your processor to feel gritty. Often a good cleaning and fresh chemicals will clear up the issue. However, if left unattended, contaminates in a film processor can not only damage the processor itself, but may also cause scratches, damage or uneven development in film as its processed.

Many popular developers, like Kodak D76, XTol and Dektol come in pre-measured powder packets. Mixing these chemicals requires warmer than room-temperature water in most cases to dissolve the powder completely. If the powder does not dissolve into solution entirely, many of the powder granules may make it into your film processor and can cause a gritty feeling either where the film reel meets the bottom of the canister or between the layers of the film reel itself.

As automatic film processors age many of the mechanical parts can wear or break. Some grittiness during processing may result from a worn part. For instance, on several commercial processors, film take up is by plastic-toothed wheels. When strain is put on these parts the plastic teeth may strip and become lodged in the operating parts of the processor causing a grittiness and the potential for future damage, as well as inconsistent film take up.

Sometimes film itself can cause difficulties in processing, particularly when film is loaded incorrectly. If film becomes bunched up toward the outside of the reel it can press against a rotary processor's outer walls and cause difficulty during the agitation stages. Film can also buckle in the reel causing spots of film to come out undeveloped. This can be avoided by increased familiarity with film loading procedures and more experience in loading film. Film that has been bent or torn may cause damage and be further damaged itself by processing through an automatic processing machine.

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