Recent content by darkroommike

My mother taught me a trick for scissors that also works with guillotine paper cutters. Get a package of assorted "Wet or Dry" sandpaper, 3M brand if you're rich like me. Cut several thin slices off with the grit side both up and down, using a piece of cardboard just back from the blade to hold...

The newer new stuff is made in a different country using different sources for all the components. That Said: "the brown on mixing" Dektol was allegedly turning brown due to a reaction by a non photographically active component. So it was supposed to be good to use. Though I prefer a paper...

Mine is on order and shipped via FEDEX. I am a little excited.

Technically what you are doing is staining not toning. And staining show up best on white borders (or white dress shirts). You could try frisket, a liquid rubber cement like material (or rubber cement I suppose) or masking off the borders with blue masking tape. Fiber paper adds a layer of...

The Film Developing Cookbook takes a different approach to formulas that does the The Darkroom Cookbook. In broad strokes: Bill Troop offers a lot more WHY and HOW, I don't consider it a cookbook at all. Steve Anchell's approach (when he is compiling the Darkroom Cookbook) is more a recipe...

All true but I wants what I wants! (Read that in a whiny kid voice please.) On a semi-serious note I really want a small bottle of syrup, I quit HC-110 when Kodak discontinued the 16oz. bottles, I'm one of the holdouts that like diluting the concentrate into a stock solution but the quart (and...

Any Negatrans can fit any Beseler and even an Omega D-series. Only difference it the base configuration. The ones for the 23C have a ring and the ones for the 45-series have four locating pins. Just make an adapter from a thin piece of "aircraft" plywood, MDF, etc.

Priced Johnson Paste Wax lately? Johnson and Johnson discontinued it about five hears ago but the Ebay vultures will sell you a can for about $115 USD! I use it on my Shopsmiths and am darn glad to still have about a can and a half left. Minwax was being offered as a workable substitute for JPW...

I see that Freestyle has pushed back the date when the new Adox Syrup will be available again with no ETA on the website for when it will get here. I'm really itching to get my hands on some of this stuff but sheesh. I suppose I could give them my email address and get notified when it gets into...

I don't know what you have done so far but I would just CLEAN all working surfaces, using naphtha (light fluid) then relubricate with Vaseline and/or 3-in-1 Oil as originally specified. Now if that isn't good enough, you could use lithium grease (a small tube will last several lifetimes) and 10W...

The Ektaflex "developer" (activator) is actually a solution of KOH, Potassium Hydroxide, and as I recall it was at a fairly high concentration with the usual warnings about goggles, etc. Potassium hydroxide is also knows as Caustic Potash (old nomenclature). It is every bit as caustic and...

I used one in the 70's (and acquire both the 35mm and the 120 models years later at a swap meets). If you had a need to quickly change from negative to the next, it was a useful tool, especially if you had a contact sheet. With a little practice you could expose a lot of prints in a hurry and...

I make small batches of D-76 and divide into even smaller bottles. I think I will be moving to the Haist version of D-76 when I exhaust my current stash.

"Dektol" is a proprietary formula, not sure how anyone can improve it since the formula is unpublished. You can improve Dektol or any paper developer by tinkering with the chemistry. Add potassium bromide to cut fog and warm the print color, add Benzotriazole to cut fog and cool the print color...

Kodak says two months for a partially used bottle (less than completely full). You are, after all, introducing oxygen into your solution each time you use it and eventually your preservative will be used up. Just one of many reasons I prefer to use developers "one shot". "One and done" means you...