What's your wash temperature? If it is warmer than the development
temp, you will get reticulation.

Don't sweat the water table (at list for your film). Salt water
does a better job of washing film than fresh water.

Geoff.

    Have you any idea of the age of the film or its type
number?
    I strongly suspect the film has been subjected to
something unusual in its storage because modern films have
very hard emulsions and are well bound to the support. Most
motion picture type films are designed for automatic
processing machines using temperatures up to 100F.
    Salts in the water tend to _reduce_ emulsion swelling
so I don't think those are the problem. If the emulsion has
was _not_ hardened for some reason you may have to process
at a quite low temperature, around 65F, but, unless this
film is very unusual I can't imagine its not being factory
hardened.
    Also, you did not say what sort of process you are
using. I would avoid highly alkaline developers like Rodinal
but any standard B&W developer should work OK, most modern
developers have reasonable pH. An acid stop bath has several
advantages one of which is to reverse swelling in the
developer.
    At any rate without more details one can only guess at
what is happening.

OK - I think I have an answer.

The tap water is cool enough now - our winter.
It comes out at about 18 C. The baths were from the
cupboard at 20C.

The emulsion was lifting off in the developer now that
I think about it more closely. Wash temperature is out
of the equation.

After dinner and a glass of think juice (armagnac)
and a cigar to settle the angst, I got to thinking
about the developer. I had, after all, only been
trying sodium bisulphate as a stop and or a hypo
eliminator, and only used the developer to be
consistent with a typical 'session'.

The developer was a 2-bath suggestion from APUG
that contained salt (NaCl) phenidone and VitC and
appealed to my sense of the unusual.

That was a dismal failure but I kept it in the fridge
as there was phenidone and vitC that could be useful
for an experiment. I added the carbonate to activate
it as a single bath and after a lot of fizzing it worked
fine - except the emulsion fell off.

The lamp lit above me as I thought to myself that the salt
might be acting by osmosis on the gelatine, so before
retiring for the night did a quick check with Diafine
and the emulsion is no longer 'tender' to the touch.
It isn't reticulated and looks like it would scan
or print as normal used any other way. I still believe
a hardener would be in order with this film somewhere in the
process but not, obviously, as a pre-hardener with
a 2-bath.

Thanks for all the thoughts. I located some calgon
today and will go down that path with the wash water
experiments, too. The sodium bisufate might indeed
be a very good (too good?) stop bath or hypo eliminator.
I only mention that because that's what is sold here (Australia)
to lower pool pH, not sulphite, as in the US. Much more
acid. More so than bisulphite even. That, and I bought
some, so I have to find a use for it :-). That is what
started the whole experiment off and revealed the emulsion
vulnerability to salt. (I think.)

I still have to finish the film in the camera, altho
with 300' available the 15 frames I took today hardly make a dent
in the supply, but I do have an economical streak, don't I? :-)

Another one for the learning curve.

Thanks to all.

Murray
Brisbane