Difference between Ilford Paper Fixer and "usual" fixer that is used for both film and paper?

[Mike Té]

Good morning.
Yesterday I was given a stash of Ilford Paper Fixer, 9 1L bottles. So, enough to make 36 litres...
What is the difference between Ilford Paper Fixer and "usual" fixer that is used for both film and paper?
Could it be used for film? Probably not; I'm wondering why.
Thanks.

 

[Michael Howard]

I've never seen that product, and it doesn't seem to be available, at least in the US. I'm guessing these are quite old, and may be no good.
As far as difference between paper and film fixer, depending on dilution, it should work fine for both. Not sure why Ilford would make this product, unless it is for a special application of some kind. Clip off a piece of film and put it a small tray of fix. It should clear within 30 seconds, if so, you can use it for film. Fixer is, generally speaking, fixer. Hardening/Non-hardening would be the only difference.

 

[NB23]

That is oooold.

Will probably stink vinegar and crysralized. Just throw that stuff away.

Use Hypam or rapid fixer. 1:9 for rc papers, 1:4 for film and fibre paper.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Mix a small amount at standard dilution and test it with a piece of unused film and see if that clears out while metering the time, you can do that in daylight.
If everything works like stated on the label, then it is good.
Perhaps, shake the bottle a little before opening, just to be sure that there are no sediments of chemical components and everything is well mixed after a long period of standing .

It might smell a little like ammoniak, but that's OK...

 

[MattKing]

That looks like an Ilford Limited product, which means it was made before 2005.
Modern Ilford Chemicals will Harman Technology references, and most likely say Made in Germany.

 

[pentaxuser]

Try it out as described and lets us know, Mike.

pentaxuser

 

[Ian Grant]

Like others, I think that's very old over 30 years, probably 1989 for an Ilfospeed processor. The first generation of Ilfospeed paper was developer incorporated, I'd been given an Ilfoprint Rapid Access processor and tried the Ilfoprint Activator, but it wasn't ideal, so I made my own, just a mix of Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Sulphite and Potassium Bromide, no developing agents, and it was perfect. But Ilfospeed II dropped the developer incorporation.


It's likely the Ilfospeed Fixer is more concentrated than current Ilford fixers, it may be a super fixer containing Thiocyanate as well as Thiosulphate to ensure the very fast throughput of the Roller transport processors.

Ian

 

[cmacd123]

ILFOSPEED was a revolutionary advance in the 1970s. the RC paper, the developer and fixer were marketed as a package. Their was also an "all in one" processor which gave a dry to dry print in a couple of minutes.

I am not sure if the Ilofospeed fixer was that different from the current ilford rapid fixer. although Rapid fixer has a dilution of 1 to 3 for film, so might be a bit more concentrated.
Unfortunatly, I agree that 30 year old fixer MIGHT be past it's prime. Sulphur odor or any precepatate is a sign to use it as a swiming pool chlorine reducer.

 

[Mike Té]

Thanks for all the input!
All bottles are still full, vacuum-sealed (no slosh). I opened the ugliest bottle...
Smells fine, not strong, and as clear as spring water, no sediment and no crystals.
1 + 3 dilution, time to clear was 35s.
I'm pleased, of course, but still wondering why there would be a separate product for paper.

 

[Craig]

I looked up an Ilford tech brochure from the late 80's that I have a photocopy of, and it says that it is for both film and paper, dilute 1:3. Fix film 2-3 min, RC and FB papers 30 seconds.

At the time, Ilfospeed was the non-hardening fixer and Ilfofix was a hardening fixer. The sole fixing agent is listed as ammonium thiosulphate.

It also says that storage life of the concentrate in an air tight bottle is one year. Capacity is listed as 100 8x10 sheets of RC paper per litre of working strength solution, 40 FB prints per litre, and 20 120 or 36 exp 35mm films per litre.

 

[MattKing]

I'm pleased, of course, but still wondering why there would be a separate product for paper.

IIRC The Ilfospeed paper was designed along with Ilfospeed paper processing machines, which not surprisingly were part of a (commercial lab) product line that was packaged and marketed to provide economy and efficiency for those businesses.

 

[Roger Cole]

I'm not too surprised it works, and it would probably be fine - but fixer isn't expensive enough, and far too important, to accept "probably," at least for me. I'd dump it, or maybe use it for work prints with a separate fixing bath for final prints. THAT might make some good use of it.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Thanks for all the input!
All bottles are still full, vacuum-sealed (no slosh). I opened the ugliest bottle...
Smells fine, not strong, and as clear as spring water, no sediment and no crystals.
1 + 3 dilution, time to clear was 35s.
I'm pleased, of course, but still wondering why there would be a separate product for paper.

View attachment 314276 View attachment 314277 View attachment 314280 View attachment 314281

So, there you are, with a nice stock of good fixer!

I think that Ilfospeed is the ancestor of the actual Rapid Fixer, here is it's technical data sheet, just in case:

 

[NB23]

I’ve never had a fixer that did not go bad after 4 years. Sediments started to form after about 4 years.
good for you if it works

 

[gone]

It passed the clip test, but that doesn't really show you how prints might hold up over time. There's no way to know either, so keep that in mind when you know you have some great shots in the camera.

I'd sell it and buy fresh fixer, just because. One thing I've learned over the years w/ film photography is that if something can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time.

 

[M Carter]

It passed the clip test, but that doesn't really show you how prints might hold up over time.

Fixer has one job - to remove undeveloped silver. I don't think there's any mystery to that; if it clears the film, do a timed strip test on the paper you're printing with to find the minimum fixing time (I don't know why people test fixer for printing with a scrap of film). If it removes silver, your only archival worry is washing it from the print.

Ealrier comments were "fixer is fixer", but rapid fixer's a very different animal as far as fixing times go. I've purchased powdered fixer from Freestyle for 40" prints where I need a gallon+ (tryin' to save a buck), and it was vey slow stuff. A timed strip test will show you exactly (well, I do 15 second increments) how long it takes your current batch of fixer to clear the current paper you're printing with, so it takes fix exhaustion and silver levels in the paper into account. and it takes about 120 seconds to do it.

 

[john_s]

I’ve never had a fixer that did not go bad after 4 years. Sediments started to form after about 4 years.
good for you if it works

It depends on the pH. Neutral or alkaline fixer does not precipitate elemental sulphur. I have Agfa FX-Universal, unopened, from around 15 years ago which is still perfectly clear (pH around 7, made for C41 process but labelled by Agfa for black and white film and paper too).

In the case of the OP's old Ilford fixer, it would be interesting to know its pH.

 

[cmacd123]

for marketing- the entire system was labeled "Ilfospeed" as the pakage did allow faster prints than what was the norm at the time. I recall that I was working for a camera dealer at the time, and went to a trade show, where Ilford had set up a booth with tinted plexiglass so they could make prints under "safelight" conditions and folks could watch. I believe that they had both tray processing and the famous "Dry to Dry" machine. (too many years for clear memories.) I did find the sample Print that they handed out many years later, and it was still perfect. (they made 10 8X10 prints as fast as they could and put them in the Processor to show how fast a pro could churn out an order.)

a while later, Multigrade RC was the replecement for Ilfospeed. And even now Multigrade developer is around which I suspect is related to Ilfospeed developer.

 

[Roger Cole]

It depends on the pH. Neutral or alkaline fixer does not precipitate elemental sulphur. I have Agfa FX-Universal, unopened, from around 15 years ago which is still perfectly clear (pH around 7, made for C41 process but labelled by Agfa for black and white film and paper too).

In the case of the OP's old Ilford fixer, it would be interesting to know its pH.

Interesting. I have an unopened jug of PF TF-4 that I bought when I had planned to return to darkroom work in 2015 or 16 (forget which) but never got around to. I rather assumed I'd just need to toss it. It looks clear and as you say no sediment. So it's probably fine?

 

[Roger Cole]

Fixer has one job - to remove undeveloped silver. I don't think there's any mystery to that; if it clears the film, do a timed strip test on the paper you're printing with to find the minimum fixing time (I don't know why people test fixer for printing with a scrap of film). If it removes silver, your only archival worry is washing it from the print.

Ealrier comments were "fixer is fixer", but rapid fixer's a very different animal as far as fixing times go. I've purchased powdered fixer from Freestyle for 40" prints where I need a gallon+ (tryin' to save a buck), and it was vey slow stuff. A timed strip test will show you exactly (well, I do 15 second increments) how long it takes your current batch of fixer to clear the current paper you're printing with, so it takes fix exhaustion and silver levels in the paper into account. and it takes about 120 seconds to do it.

They use film because it's very easy to see visually if film has cleared. The only way to know for paper that I'm aware of is to do some kind of chemical test for retained silver. PF sells a test solution that is just, mixed and then diluted to working strength, a dilute sodium sulfide solution. A small drop of undiluted selenium toner on a white border or area that's been fixed and just drained and blotted works and is the easiest method using something most darkrooms (or many, anyway) probably already have. A yellow or brown stain indicates remaining silver.

Easy enough, but still not AS easy as simply looking at a piece of film to see if it's cleared. Cleared film doesn't mean completely fixed either thus the old rule of thumb to fix film for twice the time it takes to clear. But it's a quick and very easy way to determine if fixer still basically works. Whether it works well enough to trust it for film or prints intended to be archival is a question that I'd want to do more testing before deciding.

 

[Craig]

In the case of the OP's old Ilford fixer, it would be interesting to know its pH.

The tech sheet for Ilfospeed says working strenght solution should be between 5.0-5.5.

 

[john_s]

Interesting. I have an unopened jug of PF TF-4 that I bought when I had planned to return to darkroom work in 2015 or 16 (forget which) but never got around to. I rather assumed I'd just need to toss it. It looks clear and as you say no sediment. So it's probably fine?

Isn't TF-4 the fixer that had some undissolved component and needed to be shaken before dilution?

 

[Roger Cole]

Isn't TF-4 the fixer that had some undissolved component and needed to be shaken before dilution?

Not that I recall. I’ll look at the bottle and see if there’s some instruction to that effect next time I’m downstairs. I didn’t see anything undissolved on it when I saw it a couple of days ago.

 

[Neil Grant]

Like others, I think that's very old over 30 years, probably 1989 for an Ilfospeed processor. The first generation of Ilfospeed paper was developer incorporated, I'd been given an Ilfoprint Rapid Access processor and tried the Ilfoprint Activator, but it wasn't ideal, so I made my own, just a mix of Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Sulphite and Potassium Bromide, no developing agents, and it was perfect. But Ilfospeed II dropped the developer incorporation.


It's likely the Ilfospeed Fixer is more concentrated than current Ilford fixers, it may be a super fixer containing Thiocyanate as well as Thiosulphate to ensure the very fast throughput of the Roller transport processors.

Ian

are you sure?..the 1 litre bottles would go very far in filling up an Ilfospeed Roller Tranport. The rack themselves were very deep and wide (16 inch gate?) and there was also a replenishment tank underneath - so large it was mounted on castors. IIRC the contents of an entire 5 litre bootle would be needed to fill a rack and part of the rep tank.

 

[snusmumriken]

You've reminded me that I have a 5 litre pack of Ilford HN-2 non-hardening fixer in the cupboard. Must be 25-30 years old. The powder is sealed in plastic, so it should be fine indefinitely. I think I was keeping it in case of a nuclear war or something. Now, I don't know.