Commercially available film cements are widely used in archives but they frequently fail for make sound joins for a number of reasons, some indefinable and inexplicable. Clearly modern film cement is designed for acetate film, not nitrate.
Harold Brown in "Film Joins", 1993, FIAF Preservation Commission, gives several formulae for effective film cements for nitrate film and as alternatives when nothing else works, and since these are known to be effective they are listed below.
The dioxane formula for acetate base is almost identical with the excellent, but now discontinued Kodak Film Cement of the 1970's. It was discontinued because of the toxicity of dioxane and this should be used only with full attention to the safety requirements of the hazard data sheets for 1:4-Dioxane, and should not be used as a routine cement for this reason.
The simple formula for nitrate is often used, and the "in desperation
cements" which contain acetic acid should only be used in desperation as
the acid corrodes equipment very quickly, and the fumes are difficult to
extract off the working surface.
Camphor and Phthalic acid are plasticisers used in nitrate and acetate bases
respectively.
All the original formulae have been converted to yield about 1L of cement.
It seems that an archive or a laboratory joining archive films, and joining
archive films to modern film bases, cannot use just one cement formulation. Alternatively,
the "in desperation join" has to be a tape join and some laboratories
and archives use tape rather than use the more difficult cement formulae.
Simple cement for nitrate film -about 1L
Acetone 0.66L
Amyl acetate 0.33L
This is adequate for hand joins - for machine joins increase the
viscosity by dissolving 50 ft nitrate film base in the acetone and
filtering before adding the amyl acetate.
Reliable cement for acetate [makes about 1L]
Clear acetate film base 10g
Acetone 0.3L
Methyl chloride 0.3L
Methyl glycol acetate 0.3L
Phthalic acid, dimethyl ester 100g
Dioxane Formula for acetate -about 1L
Clear acetate film base 62.5g
Dichloromethane 0.625L
Acetone 0.25L
1:4-Dioxane 0.115L
Joining acetate to nitrate [in desperation]
-about 1L
Clear acetate film base 35g [about 100 ft 35 mm film]
Acetone 850g
Glacial acetic acid 30g
Camphor 115g
Triphenylphosphate 6g
Phthalic acid, dimethyl ester 25g
Join anything to anything [in desperation] -
about 1L
Acetone 0.5L
Amyl acetate 0.25L
Glacial acetic acid 0.25L