Photographic negatives damaged by oil

Cheryl Jackson wrote via Rachel Wetzel:

>    A couple of years ago I would have recommended Rachel purchase
>    some Kodak Film Cleaner, but it is no longer available as it is
>    an ozone depleting substance.  Kodak Film Cleaner is (was) 1,1,1
>    trichloroethane, though, so you could try washing the film with
>    that.

Just a note of clarification. Only the motion picture film cleaner
with lubricant was 1,1,1-trichloroethane and since it contained the
lubricant, it was only used by mp people. The other Kodak film
cleaner for still negatives consisted of
1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2-triflouroethane (Freon 113) (which is why it
was discontinued) and n-heptane (in approximately a ratio of 70%
Freon 113 to 30% n-heptane.)

Many chlorinated hydrocarbons are used in industry as grease cutters
(oil solvents) and 1,1,1-trichloroethane should work. While none of
the chlorinated solvents are particularly nice to use, unlike many,
1,1,1-trichloroethane hasn't been classified as an occupational
carcinogen (as far as I know. 1,1,2-trichloroethane, on the other
hand, has been.)

Douglas Nishimura
Research Scientist
Image Permanence Institute

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:67
               Distributed: Wednesday, February 17, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-67-004
                                  ***