Developer/Fixer for Rockland Colloid Liquid Light "Tintype" Dry Plate Process

[Eric in Vegas]

I was hoping to try creating my own dry plates using Liquid Light and am hoping to use my own developer and fixer vs. buying their kit. Any advice/recommendations? Thanks. Eric

 

[Hunter_Compton]

I've got a bottle I've had in the back of the cupboard for a couple of years. The instructions with it say to use Dektol as a developer, although they tend to assume you are using it as a print type material, so that would tend to dictate higher contrast. If using it as a negative, I expect a developer like D-76/ID-11 or HC-110 would give lower contrast results similar to ordinary negative materials.

Fixer type shouldn't matter, use any standard or rapid fixer for film/paper.

The instructions that came with my bottle also give specific instructions when coating glass. They say to first clean the glass thoroughly with hot soapy water, and then to coat it with gelatin (such as knox gelatin) before applying the liquid light. My assumption is that the quality of the results you achieve would be based primarily on how uniformly you can apply the liquid light and underlying gelatin layer.

I'd be interested in knowing if you get a workable solution out of this, I've been interested in doing something similar myself but haven't gotten around to it.

 

[abruzzi]

I believe the Rockland kits come with their own developer, but the instruction say that fixer is not included:

The Bulk Kit contains 10 8x10 satin black aluminum plates, 8oz Liquid Light emulsion, special three-part tintype developer (makes 1 gallon) at 20% off the regular price. (Fixer sold separately.)

 

[richyd]

Look at this thread and posts from DonF. https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/rockland-colloid-should-i-bother.112558
Post #99 gives a formula.

Basically the developer is Dektol (D72) plus Ammonium Thiocyanate. I did this a few years back and it worked well, I think I tweaked the amounts but haven't got the details. Developing time was around 90 seconds and I used Foma emulsion.