Confounded by Kodalith

[dangeresque]

Hello all. I came into possession of a few bulk rolls of mystery EK film when an eBay seller threw them in alongside a separate purchase. He said he did not know what the cans contained; I received them without boxes or printed seals. I decided to check for edge markings and base fog, so I opened the can in question inside a changing bag and cut about eight inches from the roll. Development (in darkness) in Dektol 1:3 for 3 minutes yielded an opaque negative. The scrap did, however, have the emulsion number punched in (6556-127-40) which Rochester confirmed was Kodalith Ortho, Type 3.

Last night I had a bit of down time in the darkroom, so I cut a second scrap under red safelight, deliberately fogged it with exposure to white light, and developed it in straight Dektol (the most powerful liquid developer I have) for 5 minutes. My negative was again completely opaque.

If I'm not making a technical error somewhere in the process, my only guess is that the can was opened under white light at some point and the entire roll was fogged.

 

[DWThomas]

Um -- the parts exposed to light should be opaque. Is the opaque part black or milky -- did you run it through fixer? Kodalith is an extremely high contrast film used for line copy 'back in the day".

 

[Rhodes]

Here: http://www.kpgraphics.com/service_support/downloads/support/online/ortho/ti/ti1105.pdf

 

[Rick A]

Did you develope only, or did you run it through fixer when you were finished? Sounds as though you didn't fix.

 

[yellowcatt]

o I cut a second scrap under red safelight, deliberately fogged it with exposure to white light, and developed it in straight Dektol (the most powerful liquid developer I have) for 5 minutes. My negative was again completely opaque.

Er if you "deliberately fogged it with exposure to white light" then it would develop to be completely opaque. Am I missing something here?

 

[yellowcatt]

Try developing some in standard strength print developer, I used to make black and white transparencies by copying negatives on to 35mm lith and processing in print developer.

 

[dangeresque]

Um -- the parts exposed to light should be opaque. Is the opaque part black or milky -- did you run it through fixer? Kodalith is an extremely high contrast film used for line copy 'back in the day".

Did you develope only, or did you run it through fixer when you were finished? Sounds as though you didn't fix.

Yes, I used rapid fixer, 2 minutes in each bath.

Er if you "deliberately fogged it with exposure to white light" then it would develop to be completely opaque. Am I missing something here?

I took one piece which I did expose (expecting it to be black) and one which I did not (which should be clear, save for fog). Both were completely black.

 

[DWThomas]

Given that additional info, I'd say it doesn't bode well. As I recall, it was quite slow as film goes maybe around 6 or 10, and was OK with a red safelight; pretty much like using paper. I used to buy it in 8x10 sheets to make negatives (or positives) to produce photo-etched PC boards and such (a few decades back).

 

[dangeresque]

Such was my fear. Back into the freezer...