Bleach for the reversal process

glbeas · Jun 1, 2005

I recently won an auction for six bottles of Kodak Liquid Developer System Cleaner. As I suspected its the sodium version of the potassium dichromate and sulfuric acid bleach. I took it down to the Dungeon tonight and tried it with the directions from Ed Buffaloes site for reversing film, worked like a charm! Mixes up at a ratio of 10ml to 16oz water, so these six bottles are going to last me quite a while. Now I have a whole new process to learn to control...what fun!

Donald Qualls · Jun 2, 2005

Cool! Any idea if this stuff is available from suppliers like B&H or KEH? Or even Formulary? It'd be nice to have it ready to dilute instead of having to source sulfuric acid...

glbeas · Jun 2, 2005

B&H carries a version that is two part and Adorama has an Edwal cleaner. If anyone else has leads drop them in on us.

gainer · Jun 3, 2005

The Edwal cleaner is a dichromate type I believe, and should work.

roy · Jun 3, 2005

glbeas said:
I took it down to the Dungeon tonight and tried it with the directions from Ed Buffaloes site for reversing film

Were you using this to make enlarged negatives under the enlarger and converting the inter-positive into a negative ?

glbeas · Jun 3, 2005

roy said:
Were you using this to make enlarged negatives under the enlarger and converting the inter-positive into a negative ?

Yep, I was trying out the direct neg-neg route. Mind you I was playing with some 20+ year old litho film but it still worked. My next step is to get out the good stuff and start calibrating it for some real results. I'm amazed the actual process is so simple.
One thing I like about this is you can dodge and burn like you would a print, so those difficult negs can be modified to behave themselves.

glbeas · Aug 5, 2005

There's a couple of bottles up for bid on Ebay at this moment.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Kodak-Liquid-Developer-System-Tray-Cleaner-16-Ounces_W0QQitemZ7536584871QQcategoryZ29983QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

hortense · Aug 6, 2005

glbeas said:
I recently won an auction for six bottles of Kodak Liquid Developer System Cleaner. As I suspected its the sodium version of the potassium dichromate and sulfuric acid bleach. I took it down to the Dungeon tonight and tried it with the directions from Ed Buffaloes site for reversing film, worked like a charm! Mixes up at a ratio of 10ml to 16oz water, so these six bottles are going to last me quite a while. Now I have a whole new process to learn to control...what fun!

You mean you use a tray CLEANER for neg reversal?

glbeas · Aug 6, 2005

hortense said:
You mean you use a tray CLEANER for neg reversal?

Yup! How do you think the cleaner removes the silver deposits? It's just bleach.

hortense · Aug 6, 2005

glbeas said:
Yup! How do you think the cleaner removes the silver deposits? It's just bleach.

I can't find the process description on Unblinking Eye?

jd callow · Aug 6, 2005

I use this stuff to clean my processors. I have 5 or 6 bottles. PM me if your intersted in one to try.

Jorge · Aug 6, 2005

hortense said:
I can't find the process description on Unblinking Eye?

Look for the article titled "less is more" in the unblinkingeye site. IIRC it is the one which has the reversal process.

SkipA · Aug 7, 2005

I use a modified version of the Kodak R-9 potassium dichromate bleach recipe for bleaching black and white _reversal_ Plus-X, Tri-X, and Fomapan R movie film.

Can anyone tell me what is the shelf life of the mixed bleach? What about capacity for reversal purposes? It gets very cloudy with lots of sediment quickly when used for movie film reversal bleaching. I store the used R-9 in a separate container from the clean unused bleach, but I typically only use it for three or four 50 foot rolls of 8mm film before dumping it since I'm unsure of the capacity or the effect of the cloudy sediment.

Here is the formula I use.

Kodak Bleach R-9

Water 1.0 L
Potassium Dichromate (anhydrous) 9.5 g
Sulfuric Acid (Concentrated)* 12.0 ml

* CAUTION: Always add the sulfuric acid to the solution slowly, stirring
constantly, and never add the solution to the acid; otherwise, the solution
may boil and splatter the acid, causing serious burns.

(Note: I substitute 36 ml regular automotive battery acid for the 12.0 ml
concentrated Sulfuric Acid since battery acid is about 1/3 the concentration of concentrated Sulfuric Acid. I've also read that you can substitute 66g Sodium Bisulfate for the Sulfuric Acid, but I haven't tried it.)

glbeas · Aug 7, 2005

hortense said:
I can't find the process description on Unblinking Eye?

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/NbyR/nbyr.html

Bleach for the reversal process

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