Re: where do you keep your slides?

[P3D Gregg Lobdell 234-0884 <gml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Noooooooooooo!  Not in any old plastic!

> From: P3D Jim Crowell <crowell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> > From: From: P3D  <MARK_BUTTERWORTH@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > Now that I'm mounting my own slides. I don't get that nice box that
> > Kodak used to send me. What do others use. The plastic archive sheets
> > are too much, and I really like those little boxes.
>
> I got some plastic bait(?)-boxes from K-mart (I think they were
> just labelled "plastic storage containers").   They're made of
> clear, soft plastic, measure about 12" by 18" & are divided into
> (12, I think, maybe 15) compartments that hold about 25
> Realist-format slides each.  There was a smaller size that
> would've worked almost as well.  Plano is one company that makes
> them, the ones I found were a K-mart imitation brand.

Be very very careful with plastic and slides.  Old style plastic slide
sheets contained poly-vinyl-chlorides (PVC) which over time would
transfer from the slide sheets to the slides themselves causing spots
and encouraging biologicals to grow.  Current archival slide sheets
contain no PVCs.  The two styles can be differentiated by their
stiffness, older style sheets are quite stiff, standing on their own
if folded, the newer sheets are very flexible, like fabric.

I learned this the hard way.  After storage in old sheets for up to 10
years, I had about a 10% average loss rate when I transfered my slide
collection to new archival sheets.  Luckily, my best images tended to
be more recent, so they had less time to spot.  Some early rolls were
a complete loss.  I've had no problems since then, about 6 years ago.

Most consumer grade plastics, including your K-mart imitation brand
boxes, are practically guaranteed to contain PVCs.  Long term storage
in non-archival plastics can be like dipping your slides in
hydrocarbon soup.

I've always been leary of the Kodak boxes.  Paper usually contains
residual acid from manufacture, which is bad for your slides.

The best storage medium is a metal box with air spaces between each
slide.  I inherited 40+ year old Kodachrome (tm) slides stored in this
fashion which are in pristine condition.  Of course some of the early
Ektachrome (tm) received in the same box aren't nearly in as good a
condition, color wise, but that's due to the film and processing and
not the storage medium.

In short, if it doesn't specifically say "archival", don't.  If it
claims to be archival, keep an eye on it.  The world is a dangerous
place, especially if you're a slide.

Gregg Lobdell                             Voice: 206-234-0884
Boeing Commercial Airplane Group            Fax: 206-234-5775
Seattle, WA, USA                       InterNet: gml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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