Bromoil and Liquid emulsions

[Ross Chambers]

Who would want to add yet another layer to the drawn out Bromoil process?

However the temptation is there: Fulvio has a brief archived note about using Foma liquid emulsion on "art paper" but he doesn't expand much on that.

I have some Tetenal Work emulsion and a choice of papers, including Arches Platine.

Could anybody shed any light, so to speak, on the likelihood of this combination working for Bromoils?

Regards - Ross

 

[Fulvio]

Very simple: some factory made emulsions contain hardeners which prevent the bleaching and the creation of a matrix necessary for inking.

Some liquid emulsions don't have hardeners in it. There's a little known Foma liquid emulsion that does not contain any hardeners inside (you can add it separately, for ordinary silver gelatin prints). Unfortunately, Foma does not export this product outside the Czech Republic. (If they changed their mind and they do now, please let me know... it's also veeery cheap and glossy too!)

I have yet to experiment with Adox/Efke. I got this emulsion and have used it for normal bw printing. It's not as good as SE1 or Foma. Dries up quickly and I don't like it's contrast.

Most of the liquid emulsion I tried (Maco, SE1 and another brand which I don't remember) do not work for bromoil. I don't think it was Tetenal. You could give it a try: coat your paper with emulsion as you would do normally. Print your photograph, fix, wash, wait until dry, then bleach and see what happen. If it doesn't bleach correctly it won't work. Sometimes it apparently bleaches ok, but then in the inking stage turns out as a mess.

Then of course, you can manufacture your own emulsion. Most of the recipes found in the "Silver Gelatin" book will work. Emulsion making can be as hard as making a successful bromoil. Many formulas required a lot of dedication and a darkroom optimized for it. I have been successful only in preparing the simplest one but it had to be used straight away from preparation.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I would say I agree with all that Fulvio said but the part of the darkroom optimized for it.

I get by with a tiny darkroom originally designed for B&W and color, but now am making emulsions and doing B&W. I cannot do color due to space limitations, but all else is just fine.

PE

 

[Fulvio]

of course, as long as it's a darkroom it will work somehow... For optimised I just mean that the the better your darkroom is, the easier and less bewildering will be the emulsion manufacturing process. Much depends also on what kind of emulsion one wants to make. A fridge for storing or cooling emulsions is handy for example.

Accessories can do small, but significant differencies. I recently bought for very cheap on ebay an hot plate with a magnetic stirrer.. I got that having in mind the idea of standardizing a little my emulsion making process. I didn't have much time lately, but have tested it with simple POP emulsions and works great. The hot plate keeps the solution warm very precisely and the stirrer keeps the solution mixing at a set speed. The hot plate is also very useful to keep the emulsion warm while you coat the papers.

 

[Ross Chambers]

Tetenal Emulsion has Hardener

After an exhaustive search I finally e-mailed Tetenal in England and they have replied that Tetenal Work liquid Emulsion does have an incorporated hardener, so I'll save it for another purpose, especially as my results with Ilford WT FB have been encouraging. Silverprint's notes on the range of liquid emulsions that they carry are a little cautious about the archival properties of those emulsions, too.