crystalized rodinal

I have some 20 year old crystalized rodinal. I got hooked after I heard that I couldn't get any more! Story of my life! After hearing about the demise of Agfa, I was wondering about filtering the crystals out and if there is any way of saving this stuff? I tried warming it up and stirring it, but it soon returned to its crystalized form. any thoughts on this?

Thanks! Dorothy

If you filter it, you will lose some of it.

It has probably crystallised due to evaporation. I would add a litle water, stir it, and repeat until everything was dissolved.

That's easy for me to say - I have a magnetic stirrer. Best darkroom investment since my first enlarger!

Is it totally crystalized, or just has a few crystals in the bottom? As shipped fresh, it is characteristic to have a crystal or two in the bottle, and IIRC, you are advized to leave it in. It might be that you've lost enough of the solvent/liquid through slow evaporation over time to have precipitated more than the usual number of crystals .

I would give it a test run to check activity level, and if it looked good, continue to use it. I'd leave it alone if it worked OK, and not filter out the crystals. It's been a while since I've read up on it, so there are others here who are very likely to be more completely informed and I'm sure you'll hear from more of an expert soon.

Lee

I had a friend give me a bottle of Rodinal that was just like this. Mine was so old that it was the kind with the rubber stopper in the glass bottle. Anyway, it worked just fine, although I would advise a test roll of film to be sure.

If you don't want to risk film with it, use it as a paper dev. It will work as I once mixed up some Rodinal for film and carelessly mixed it at the wrong dilution. Instead of throwing it away, I used it as a print dev. Sorry, I don't remember the dilution, but you might want to start with 1+25.

The two bottles I have are the 100 ml glass bottles with the rubber stopper. One of them has about 10 ml of crystals : 70 ml liquid. I just tried something. I rolled the bottle slowly between my fingers wetting the crystals. The crystals disolved, but left the liquid very cloudy. I'm sure the sediment will return to the bottom as before. The other bottle has very little crystalization, perhaps 2-3 ml. I will try using it and get back to you all.

Dorothy

djkloss said:

The two bottles I have are the 100 ml glass bottles with the rubber stopper. One of them has about 10 ml of crystals : 70 ml liquid. I just tried something. I rolled the bottle slowly between my fingers wetting the crystals. The crystals disolved, but left the liquid very cloudy. I'm sure the sediment will return to the bottom as before. The other bottle has very little crystalization, perhaps 2-3 ml. I will try using it and get back to you all.

Dorothy

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I think you will be fine. When you mix it up using the original recipe, it states that you MUST have some crystals in the bottom. My bottle has gone brown and I can see no change in its effectiveness. Its a shame that we wont be able to get it commercial any longer, but the original recipe is available from J and C photo as R09 (http://www.jandcphoto.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=156)
and you can mix it up yourself as well, the original formula that is, and according to Anchell and Troop, there is no discernable difference between the original and the commercial product. I use it way to much to stop now, can you tell?

- Randy