Just getting my fingers wet in tintype, with the Rocklands AG-Plus and "tintype developer" and hoping someone here can asnwer some questions.
#1 - The developer mixed up the colour of strong tea. It was purchased directly from Rockland only recently but I had read that the brown colour indicates it is "oxidized". The process isn't working well for me, so could this be part of the problem?
#2 - Coating thickness. When I spread the AG-Plus with my finger into a nice thin sheet, it all seems to just "wash off" in the developer and leave no image. When I paint it on thick with a brush, I get a better image but it is still REALLY dark (even when exposed up to f5.6 @ 3 seconds - books says f16@.5S in sunlight) Could this also be the developer? How thick should the emulsion coating be? As thick as a sheet of paper? As thick as a sheet of photo paper?
I have the opportunity to market "olde tyme photos" to 10,000 to 15,000 people over 4 days in July but I am rapidly loosing faith in the reliability of the tintype process!