Bad HAS?

[Quiver2]

Got a problem here. Mixed a batch of C-27, the reversed engineered C-41 formula. After mixing the HAS I noticed what appeared to be oily spots much like you would see on top of broth or soup. After adjusting the pH I found that the plastic of my pH meter was sticky as if I had covered it with modelling glue. It smelled much like this as well. Like a dummy I continued the process thinking that this was because I was using raw chemicals instead of mixed concentrates. Development ran without a hitch except that the inside of my developing tank was damaged with etched white spots, and that my negatives once dried slightly also showed white spots that I can't seem to remove.

Of all the chemicals the HAS is the one that I was uncomfortable with having used all other chemical components in other formulas, with the exception of the dry CD-4 which clearly did what it should have done. It also didn't help that when the HAS arrived in the mail that it had Russian postage on the package. It has me wondering if I had received counterfeit HAS as I haven't found any information of this happening with anyone else.

 

[mshchem]

I have never heard of C-27? What is HAS?

 

[afriman]

Perhaps that "HAS" is gum arabic.

 

[afriman]

Whatever it is, it looks like you've been "HAD"! That stuff must be pretty strong for such a small quantity to have such a dramatic effect. It would be interesting to get some input from the chemists around here. Could even be we're barking up the wrong tree and something else went wrong with your homebrew. Something wrong with the water perhaps?

 

[Quiver2]

HAS is short for Hydroxylamine sulfate. The C-27 recipe was developed by stefan4u https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/color-negative-developer-near-to-c41.42731/

Afriman, I don't think it's my water as I drink the stuff. I've also developed B&W, and color (both ECN-2 and c-41 kits) using it as well. The only plastics that was attacked by this has been either polystyrene or ABS. As for being had, I'm wondering at this point, but I thought I was getting it from a legitimate source through Amazon especially since the estimated shipping time suggested a source from inside the country. Instead it arrived by post with Russian postage, which struck me as odd. I mean I order printed materials from the UK and it sits in Chicago customs for a month, but an item that probably shouldn't be shipped by post and rattles like a bottle of pills? No problem, eight days and no sign that customs even gave it a hard look.

 

[Photo Engineer]

That is not HAS IMHO. HAS, when it goes bad, is not like that at all. It has a number of routes to "badness" but this is not one of them.

PE

 

[Quiver2]

Thanks PE. I just tried mixing this recipe without the HAS. It turns out to be the CD-4 from Artcraft that's doing it. Now if I recall correctly the CD-4 that most of us will find is the sulfate form and should dissolve easily in this. I suppose I should point out that I substituted sodium carbonate for the potassium carbonate in the published formula. Would this substitution cause this effect with the CD-4? Also what could I do to remove these spots from the negatives that I developed? It seems to be part of the film base now given that I can't feel any difference when I rub a finger over them.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The substitution should not cause this problem unless you put way too much in or unless you had a cascaded error of several mistakes.

Removal of the defects might require treatment in a dilute acid or base bath such as dilute acetic acid or dilute carbonate and then going through the bleach, wash, fix and stab / final rinse. However, to have CD4 do this without a severe effect on color balance, speed or crossover is quite unusual. CD4 is an organic base. It is sold as an acid salt. If the solution is too basic, then it can oil out and form oil spots on the film, but it usually is hard to form the spots you see. It would form dark oily spots on the film.

PE

 

[Quiver2]

What pH would it have to be at to do this? It is forming oily spots on the top of the developer solution. I do use a acetic acid sulfite stop bath so that might have helped prevent the oily spots on the film. Another question is would those oily spots attack plastics such as polystyrene or ABS? This CD4 clearly etched my development tank and the plastic parts of my pH meter.

Edit:
I mixed my chemistry to the point of where I would start adding the KBr and KI and took a reading of the pH. The pH meter read 10.52.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I cannot say what caused the spots on your tank. Washing with 28% Acetic Acid should help with that, but be careful with the electrode while doing this and make sure that you wash well with DW and re-season the electrode in the meter's electrolyte. As for the pH reading, it is a little high but in the range expected. I believe it should be about 10.1 - 10.2.

This whole thing is unusual. Something is not right. Maybe it is not CD4 but rather something like CD1 or CD2. They have a great tendency to oil out like this.

PE

 

[Quiver2]

If you could send me some images of what CD4 powder is suppose to look like then I can probably eliminate or confirm that as a reason. I did order CD2 and CD4 from Artcraft at the same time. Perhaps they mislabeled the containers? The container labeled CD4 contains a fine slightly reddish/pinkish crystal. The CD2 which I have not opened yet looks like a coarse sugar like crystal through the amber container.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have no CD4 in solid form at present. I have only CD3 and CD6. Sorry.

However, most all CDs look pretty much the same really and it would be hard to diagnose here.

Sorry.

PE

 

[Quiver2]

Well, drat!

I guess next development session I'll have to try the container labeled CD2 to see if it does the same thing. I kinda do hope on one level that this isn't the case as that will say unfortunate things in terms of image stability for the three films that I've developed.

Thanks.

 

[mshchem]

Why not use Kodak Flexicolor Developer? You can buy 5 L of replenisher for under 15 bucks. It's made in China. Granted not Russia, but if you're after the whole cold war, totalitarian, anti-American thing? Just saying...
Some of these chemicals are probably so loaded with crud, outdated, decomposing.
Man, dissolving styrenics??? Could be benzene or some other nasty floating around .

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Got a problem here. Mixed a batch of C-27, the reversed engineered C-41 formula. After mixing the HAS I noticed what appeared to be oily spots much like you would see on top of broth or soup. After adjusting the pH I found that the plastic of my pH meter was sticky as if I had covered it with modelling glue. It smelled much like this as well. Like a dummy I continued the process thinking that this was because I was using raw chemicals instead of mixed concentrates. Development ran without a hitch except that the inside of my developing tank was damaged with etched white spots, and that my negatives once dried slightly also showed white spots that I can't seem to remove.

Of all the chemicals the HAS is the one that I was uncomfortable with having used all other chemical components in other formulas, with the exception of the dry CD-4 which clearly did what it should have done. It also didn't help that when the HAS arrived in the mail that it had Russian postage on the package. It has me wondering if I had received counterfeit HAS as I haven't found any information of this happening with anyone else.

one reason I stick to B&W.

 

[Quiver2]

Okay, I either have to assume blinding incompetence from Artcraft, or somehow figure out what perversion of chemistry and physics is going on here. I attempted mixing the developer using the container labeled CD2. Had the same thing happen with oily substance on top. Checking their website they do not list CD1 as a product so they either packed both with CD2 or I have something else going on here. I'll have to try this using distilled water next, but I don't have much faith in this working.

 

[Photo Engineer]

What is your mixing order?

It should be Sulfite, HAS, CD and then the rest.

PE

 

[Quiver2]

Okay so my current mixing order is in the order that it is listed in the formula:

800ml tab water
2g Calgon
34g Potash (Potassium carbonate)
1.9g Sodium Bikarbonate
3.5g Sodium Sulphite
1.4 g Potassium bromide
1.4 mg (!) Potassium iodide
2g HAS (Hydroxylamine sulfate)
5.3g CD4

Up to 1 Liter

Spelling is the original author's.
So if I'm understanding you correctly PE it should be:

800ml tap water
2g Calgon
3.5g Sodium Sulphite
2g HAS (Hydroxylamine sulfate)
3.5g CD4
34g Potassium carbonate
1.9g Sodium bicarbonate
1.4g Potassium bromide
1.4mg Potassium iodide
water to make 1 Liter

This seems a bit strange when compared to the ECN-2 formula, which is the only other color process that I've done from raw chemicals, which adds everything else first then the color developer.

Edited to fix missing decimal point.

 

[Photo Engineer]

It is the only thing I can envision that is causing oil to form assuming you even have the organic ingredients. Otherwise, the other order is OK for CD3 and CD4 which are soluble. CD1 and CD2 for example are not very soluble in alkaline solution.

PE

 

[koraks]

I have been mixing the Bonavolta C41 recipe for quite some time with the CD4 being mixed in as the ast ingredient. I have never seen an oily residue being formed and the developer is clear as water with the slightest yellow tint (it's hard to see, so faint) to it after mixing. I suspect the mixing order isn't very critical as long as the sulfite and HAS are dissolved prior to the CD4.
My current batch of CD4 is a fine white powder very much like caster sugar, but in the past I've also used a batch of CD4 that consisted of tan granules resembling cane sugar. Both worked fine and dissolved easily and completely.
I do get an oily residue when dissolving CD3 if no alcohol is present (I use generic 95% bioethanol), but nowhere near as much as in what I see in the photos and over and it also looks differently; they are a kind of small, dark brown-purple oily droplets and only a few of them.

I'm planning to give this C27 formula a try; I assume the carbonate is anhydrous, judging by the amount used?

 

[Quiver2]

The mixing order change worked. Negatives came out looking as well as the what I've achieved using the Arista C-41 developer.

In my limited experience CD4 is a light pinkish/magenta color in solution. CD3 looks much the same in solution. Never had CD3 ever do this when mixing ECN-2 developer. The carbonate in the C27 formula is anhydrous.

Now the question is how can I identify the CD compound that I have? It is likely that it's CD2, but that practically screams that Artcraft, or the employee who packed that jar didn't care about what was actually in it. That isn't a reputation that I'd think that they would want. So the other possibility is that they received CD2 that was mislabeled, or a counterfeit compound that does form a dye and generally behaves as a color developer, which would be stretching the realms of possibility to the breaking point.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, this does not look like CD4. The mixing order fixed the problem which indicates to me that it is an early CD such as CD1 or CD2. By a stretch it might be CD3, but not CD4. It could be CD6, but that is so rare nowdays that I discount it.

PE

 

[Quiver2]

Yeah, I don't think that it's CD3 either. I have a jar of CD3 and I'm certain that it would have dissolved in this formula base without a hitch. Now given that Artcraft doesn't list CD1 as a compound that they sell,that really only leaves CD2 as a possibility. They don't have two of the possibilities, and one I'm certain of the behavior of. That means that they gave me CD2 and charged me for CD4. That's an $11.00 difference. This has me very upset. So, as Artcraft can't be trusted to actually deliver what a person orders when it comes to color developer, does anyone have suggestion of where I can order CD4 in the US?

 

[koraks]

Would CD2 have yielded identical results to a proper C41 developer as you state above? I wouldn't know; I have never worked with CD2.

Why not contact Artcraft and explain the problem? I'm pretty sure they're not in business to rip people off. They appear to have many satisfied customers and it's likely they want to keep it that way. If they inadvertently sent you the wrong product, perhaps they are willing to figure out what went wrong and somehow help resolve the situation.

 

[Quiver2]

I don't know if its identical results. Haven't tried scanning the negatives yet. This is just impressions from looking at the negatives hanging up after development. My brother said much the same thing in regards to contacting Artcraft. The only issue that I see here is that it's been over a month since purchasing. I was buying chemical in anticipation of running out of a C41 kit. Combine this with not being a large volume shooter, and it can take a while before mixing a batch of developer.