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Process control

J-86’s quick reference swaps the rinse and Hypo Clearing Agent notes

Records that Kodak J-86’s Quick Reference final-steps table places the running-water rinse instruction on the Hypo Clearing Agent row and the interval-agitation note on the 30-second Rinse row, while AJ-3, J-109 and ED-BWF align those same note strings with the matching steps.

Published by AnalogFixer ·

Kodak’s T-MAX Developers sheet and Kodak’s other process tables do not attach the same notes to the post-fix rinse and Hypo Clearing Agent steps.

On J-86’s page-12 Quick Reference, the Agitation and Notes cell for the 30-second Rinse is the interval-agitation sentence that AJ-3, J-109 and ED-BWF print on Hypo Clearing Agent / wash aid. The cell for Hypo Clearing Agent is the running-water rinse sentence those other sheets print on Rinse. The Time column on J-86 still reads 30 seconds for Rinse and 1 to 2 minutes for Hypo Clearing Agent. That note-column alignment is what this page tracks — not a wash recipe, and not a choice of which note a worker should follow.

What J-86 prints on page 12

KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX Developers, Kodak Alaris publication J-86, December 2017 (Revised 12-17), ends with QUICK REFERENCE TO PROCESSING FILMS. Steps 4 and 5 of that table read:

Step Time Agitation and Notes
4. Rinse 30 seconds Agitate continuously for the first 30 seconds and then at 30-second intervals.
5. Hypo Clearing Agent 1 to 2 minutes Rinse the film in the tank under running water.

In the manufacturer PDF, “Agitate…” sits on the same row as 4.Rinse, and “Rinse the film…” sits on the same row as 5.Hypo Clearing Agent. A June 2025 Wayback capture of the same Kodak Moments URL matches the live file byte for byte and carries the same pairing.

The Rinse note is not workable inside the Time cell beside it. A 30-second step cannot contain both a continuous first 30 seconds and later 30-second intervals. That timing mismatch is part of what that page prints; it is not a separate measurement.

J-86 has no other Rinse / Hypo Clearing Agent process table in that PDF. The Quick Reference is the only place those two step labels appear with notes.

Diagram showing J-86 quick reference swapping rinse and Hypo Clearing Agent notes between sections.

AJ-3, J-109 and ED-BWF keep the notes on the matching steps

AJ-3, How to Process and Print Black-and-White Film, February 2016 (Revised 2/16), uses the same step order and the same Time figures, but the notes are reversed relative to J-86:

Step Time Agitation and Notes
4. Rinse 30 seconds Rinse the film in the tank under running water.
5. Hypo Clearing Agent 1 to 2 minutes Agitate continuously for the first 30 seconds and then at 30-second intervals.

J-109 for KODAK PROFESSIONAL XTOL Developer, February 2018, under Final Steps in Small-Tank, Tray, and Rotary-Tube Processing, matches that alignment with only minor wording differences in the Hypo Clearing Agent note (“and at 30-second intervals after that” rather than AJ-3’s “and then at 30-second intervals”):

Step Time Notes
Rinse 30 seconds Rinse the film in the tank under running water.
Hypo Clearing Agent 1 to 2 minutes Agitate continuously for the first 30 seconds and at 30-second intervals after that.

ED-BWF, Processing KODAK PROFESSIONAL Black-and-White Films, March 2023 (Revised 3-23), names the middle step Wash aid rather than Hypo Clearing Agent, and prefixes the agitation sentence with a treat-with-product clause, but still puts the running-water sentence on Rinse and the interval agitation on the wash-aid row:

Step Time Comments
Rinse 0:30 Rinse the film in the tank under running water.
Wash aid 1:00 to 2:00 Treat with KODAK PROFESSIONAL Hypo Clearing Agent. Agitate continuously for the first 30 seconds and then at 30-second intervals.

So the two note strings that sit crossed on J-86 are, on these three sheets, attached to the steps their wording describes. None of those three sheets marks J-86’s Quick Reference as superseded, and J-86 does not point to AJ-3, J-109 or ED-BWF for a corrected final-steps notes column.

Naming the row when you quote the note

A quote of Kodak’s post-fix rinse or Hypo Clearing Agent notes from this set is either:

  • J-86’s Quick Reference pairing — interval agitation on the 30-second Rinse row; running-water rinse wording on the Hypo Clearing Agent row — or
  • the AJ-3 / J-109 / ED-BWF pairing — running-water rinse wording on Rinse; interval agitation on Hypo Clearing Agent / wash aid —

unless the citation names the document and the row.

None of these four sheets explains why J-86’s notes column is crossed relative to the other three, supplies a corrected Quick Reference, or states that the Time column alone governs when the notes disagree. Treating the four tables as one Kodak final-steps instruction, or rewriting J-86’s notes into AJ-3’s alignment without saying so, goes past the documents. The wash duration on those same tables is a separate fork; see Kodak’s film wash is 20–30 or 5 by sheet. Step 7’s wetting clock on J-86 disagrees with J-109’s band; see Photo-Flo step is 30 seconds or 30 seconds to 1 minute.

References