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Author Message   Mareklew Tinkerer Username: Mareklew Post Number: 248 Registered: 03-2010 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - 02:58 pm:    @Sapata, English isn't my mother tongue, so I am less clear than I'd like. When you put film into the tank, it goes on a sort of a spiral, or is otherwise kept from sticking together. As you wind it onto the spiral it forms a coil, layer after layer, there's a gap between layers. The smaller the gap, the more film can go onto the spiral (or the smaller the tank can be), but it's getting harder to get fresh developer between the film layers. If your tank is watertight, then it is supposed to be turned upside-down and back to normal a few times to stir the developer. Jobo 1500 series tanks are like that, for example. The proper way to stir such a tank is to turn it upside-down and back about three times within about 10 seconds and then slam it onto a hard surface to dislodge any air bubbles trapped in the film. Slam it hard, but not to break it. You repeat it once every minute*. If your tank is built so, that to stir the developer you spin the [film with the spiral film holder] inside the tank, by means of a knob sticking out through the tank lid, then you can spin the spiral clockwise or counter-clockwise. The proper way is so, that the developer is forced between coils of film. If you look onto your film spiral from above, it will look either like this: @ or like a mirror reflection of it. The 'o' in '@' being the spiral's axle and the 'tail' being the film going around it counter-clockwise. If it looks like that, then spin it counter-clockwise. If the film goes clockwise around the axis, then spin it clockwise. You have to be careful, you spin it in an 'intense' way, so that the developer really moves between the film coils, but not so hard as to rip the film from between spiral coils. For the 120 type film the inversible tank type is much, much better than one you are supposed to spin, exactly because of the risk of getting the film ripped out from the coils. Marek * I know there are many ways to stir it, some stir more, some less, but this is how I do it and I get much better pictures than posted here, so let's start with these numbers and work from there.