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Azo and Kodachrome, it does not make sense to me.

PE,

Thanks for the idea on costs associated with this paper.

As far as coating my own I stated in another thread I would be interested in buying the emulsion already made. As of this point I don't know much about the process of making up a batch of emulsion other than what I saw on you tube. How much of an investment in equipment would be required?

I saw Alex's review on the sample, but not in person.

I think in the new year I'm going to have to seriously consider going down this avenue since I'm down to my last few sheets of Azo.

chris
 
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Amplifying a bit on my previous post; Pt/pl printers, and other alt process practitioners, have long used non-baryta papers. The self-made silver chloride emulsion opens this up to those of us who still prefer a silver gelatin emulsion. I recently started ULF with a 7x17 camera. The thoughts I'm having of contact printing the 7x17 on a silver chloride emulsion on non-baryta paper are getting me excited!
 
Hey, Alex. Do you still have the Traveling Portfolio? It would be neat to see one of your handcoated silver-chloride prints in there.
 
Yes David, I have it. With the Holiday and all, I'm shooting for sending it along on Saturday. And as I said, there will be at least one print made on Ron's hand-coated paper.
 
Great!
 
If I made the emulsion for sale, it would be difficult to keep up, and I'm not in that sort of business. On a one off basis the cost is high, say $700 / batch, but on a bigger batch basis it would be closer to $100 /kg and this would make about 100 8x10 prints of grade 2.

It is complicated to get a good price on this due to the fact that I use 1 hour of hot water whether I make 100 g, 1 kg or 5 kg. The variable is silver nitrate, and there, if I buy 25g vs 1 kg, the price per gram drops. So, the more I make, the more I spend for supplies, but the lower the price to you. But, the more time I take doing only that one thing.

If I had an apprentice or assistant maybe things would be easier.

PE
 

I have to agree viz a vis the creative potential. POP's tonal scale can be just as expressive as Azo. If one is put off (as I am) by the red tone to Mr. Cowles' prints, take heart. I've seen many POPs with a beautiful neutral tone (slightly warm black with just a trace of gold and no red at all) when toned in platinum based toner. But it takes quite a bit of training and practice to produce.
 
There is a company that sells silver chloride emulsion for contact printing. It was discussed in this thread - (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
 
The total investment would include the following:

1. Silver nitrate (25 grams)
2. Sodium Chloride and Sodium Bromide and Potassium Iodide (100 grams each)
3. Photo grade gelatin (1/2 KG)
4. Balance
5. Stirring hotplate
6. Glyoxal (100 ml) or Chrome Alum (10 grams)
7. Surfactant such as PhotoFlo
8. Erythrosine (5 grams)
9. Thymol (10 grams)
10. Ammonia (28%) (1 liter)
11. Sodium Thiosulfate pentahydrate

This would be enough to coat about 100 sheets of 8x10 based on silver. You would have leftovers of the other chemistry and could make another 200 or so sheets from the leftovers with more silver nitrate.

You will need a good thermometer, a brush, puddle pusher, coating blade or tray for coating the paper and some plates, film or paper to coat on. You will need a flat surface to lay the paper, film or plates on and a place to hang film and paper during drying.

The total investment would be under $1000. Many of you have this equipment and even some of the chemicals.

It takes about 1 hour to make an Azo type emulsion, about 2 hours to make a Kodabromide type emulsion and about 3 - 4 days to make the ISO 40 film emulsion.

You will need about 1 - 3 gallons of distilled water to assist in making, one of the gallons being refrigerated.

Optional equipment includes a coffee filter (gold metal mesh), a potato ricer, cheesecloth or old panty hose and PA (phthalated gelatin). A pH meter or pH paper is handy. If you go the PA gelatin route you will need 35% battery acid and sodium hydroxide, both diluted to about 4% - 5%.

Oh, you also need a formula. Several starting points have been published in the Emulsion Making and Coating Forum here on APUG.

PE
 
Photo Engineer said:
The total investment would include the following:
...
The total investment would be under $1000. Many of you have this equipment and even some of the chemicals. ...
Click to expand...

Ron,

I do not think you meant to type $1000.

What did you mean?

Steve
 
3Dfan said:
There is a company that sells silver chloride emulsion for contact printing. It was discussed in this thread - (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
Click to expand...

The Lucenta gelatin contains the sodium chloride as stated on the web page, and to get the speed claimed there, from the formula described, he must be adding other chemicals to assist in ripening or sensitizing. In fact, this may be an old style active gelatin. Therefore this emulsion is not a true Azo type formula due to its speed, although I'm sure it works just fine.

I would avoid the powdered emulsion for one reason only. Kodak and other companies have always had difficulty getting good quality from dried emulsions. Too many problems. If it were possible to do well, then Liquid Light and other similar products would have been shipped dry rather than as a gel. As a gel, the formula has a limited lifetime but is going to be of higher quality, in my experience. If the bigger companies could do it, they would.

In general, drying an emulsion renders it more sensitive to abrasion and fog. That is another problem associated with this type of material.

However, anyone trying any of these products should report on them for us. I would love to be proven wrong and that someone has developed something new. This would be an important lesson for us all that there are things left to discover in emulsion making and that it can be done by anyone.

PE
 
It must be the engineer in me. I would have separated the items buy recurring and non-recurring costs.

Steve
 

Parts of your response remind me of Ziatype. For a POP process Zia has alot of potential from neutral thru colored tones and is also self masking.
 
PE,

Thanks for the tally. I would plan a workshop with you too.

chris
 
At the present time, I do not plan one at the Formulary this year due to other commitments. I'll keep an update here for all interested parties.

PE
 
I've never tried Ziatype, but aren't all POP processes self-masking? I like the simplicity of a factory coated paper, but there may come a day when I'm forced to learn hand coating, and Ziatype might be a good place to start. I love the colors I get from POP with various toning techniques, like the ones Cowles uses, among others. It takes time to master, but that's the part I love.
 
Whats with Kodak's announcment of 10 sheet B&W film packaging??

I know that color sheet film is in 10 sheet packs, but it is also very expensive (which is one reason I shoot B&W!)

Is Kodak trying to tell consumers something---like ""Our sheet film is going to be so expensive that we're only going to sell it in 'economical' ten sheet packages?"

Thats the message I'm getting.

Right now at Badger Graphic, Kodak 8x10 sheet film is on parity, sheet for sheet, with Ilford---actually Kodak is a dollar less per 50 sheets. Kodak is in 50 sheet boxes while Ilford would take 25 sheet boxes to amont to Kodak's 50. We're not talking a lot of money here, but this is the first time I can remember that Kodak film has been in the approximate ball park of it's major competitor.
 
John, That is the message i am getting from Ilford so why should it be any different from Kodak?
Don't start another one please.

jan
 
3DFAN wrote: There is a company that sells silver chloride emulsion for contact printing. It was discussed in this thread - (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I wrote to that guy, he's in Costa Rica. He said he won't ship it to the USA. I don't know why, mabe there's some governmental restrictions. I'd like to try it though.
 
 

Has Kodak even announced pricing for the 10 sheet packages yet?

I can't find any references to it on the web.
 
I could see the sense in 10-sheet boxes of 8x10" to get more of the educational market, but once someone has decided on a film and committed to the format, what a pain...
 
aldevo said:
Has Kodak even announced pricing for the 10 sheet packages yet?

I can't find any references to it on the web.
Click to expand...

Yes, there was mention to it somewhere in the recent public announcement of the new TMY. I spoke to this in detail with Kodak management (Ie why we would desire a 20 or 25 sheet compromise) so until I see the formal product offered in 8x10 it is still a jump ball IMHO.

To hear some folks get all worked up on this subject is par for the course. Is not the objective the film? Kodak packaging is not that expensive because they buy in bulk. Give it some time and it will all work out.

Cheers!
 
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