Negatives stuck together

[Marcoma]

Hello all

I recently found some photos and negatives that were stores in an outdoor shed for at least 15 years. The photos appear to be ruined beyond repair, are stuck together and appear to have mould on them.

The negatives are stuck together, after reading some similar posts I have left them to soak in water for more than 24 hours yet they still are pretty much stuck like glue.

What next to try to save them?

 

[Derrel]

Maybe try some slightly warmer water? Maybe that would help?

 

[Marcoma]

I'll give that a try, though I'm unsure how warm is too warm. As I understand it hot water can damage the negatives.

 

[webestang64]

Was going to tell you to ask photo-er.com but it looks like their site got hacked.

 

[Dave442]

I would test on a small batch the first time. For warm water, I would add warm water to the water the negatives were already in to slowly raise the temp. Just the storage location makes it sound like it is going to be difficult to recover the negatives, especially if there were some hot and humid conditions.

I had something similar happen a number of years ago. I finally dug in-between some of the negative strips with an x-acto knife and then just pulled them apart. Saved a few of the images and was able to scan them, but most were tossed. I would probably now try dental floss instead of the x-acto knife, but expect a lot of damage.