Dissolving 20% Ferric Oxalate - Again!

I just wanted to give an update on my problem of dissolving ferric oxalate, 20% solution for kallitype printing.

Dana Sullivan shipped me a fresh batch of FO last week and this evening I opened the new container of powdered ferric oxalate and within minutes I had 50ml of a 20% ferric oxalate solution completely dissolved.

I heated distilled water to the boiling point and slowly added the boiling water to the ferric in a pyrex cruicible to make the desired volume. I stirred briefly and then placed the crucible in a container of water pre-heated to 200F.

I let the cruicble sit for a few minutes, stirred the contents and repeated this process 2 more times. Within 5 minutes all of the FO was completely dissolved.

Thanks to B&S for replacing the FO and including mixing instructions which worked great.

Thank you for posting this Don, it is good information. B&S have always been tops in my book and glad to hear others find their support among the best.

I may order some Ferric Oxalate from B&S. I got some from Photographers' Formulary, and it's a bunch of multicolored crystals. (Mostly green.) It doesn't look very consistent, though.

I'm interested in seeing what our competitors' ferric oxalate looks like, Neil. I'll send you atleast 100 grams of B&S ferric oxalate if you'd send me back the Photo Formulary crystals you have. I'll cover shipping both ways, as well.

This same offer applies to anyone who has a bottle of powdered ferric oxalate from Artcraft that they'd like to trade in for B&S powder.

Recently, I dissolved a bottle of 25ml B&S FO No.2 and it started foaming (very tiny foam) to the brink. The foam just stood there and would not go off. It took me several rounds of heating up (microwave) the bottle before it completely dissolved, taking more than an hour. The problem - The instance the microwave was turned on, the foam rapidly flowed out of the bottle. I've done this several times before following Arentz instruction and without problem. Please tell me what to do if this occur again. Thanks in advance.

That's a very odd problem, eggshell. I don't think I've seen ferric oxalate foam like that before. Do you have any ferric oxalate in powder form that came from the same order as the foaming bottle? I'm interested in seeing if I can reproduce this same problem.

I'll gladly replace your all of you ferric oxalate solutions/powder at no charge , and I'll pay the return shipping charges for the foaming ferric oxalate.

Thanks,

Dana

Hello Dana,

I purchased 5 bottles of FO No.1 and 5 bottles No.2 in July 2006. I'm still using the bottle that foamed (by the way I use distilled water). Seems to work fine. Just troublesome! No problem with FO No.1 so far. Don't know if the rest of FO No.2 bottles will have foaming problem. I observed that even though the FO has completely dissolved, the foam needed overnight to settle down. If you like, I could sent back the foamed bottle, or even the rest of No.2 bottles to you, but it will cost you more for overseas shipping. Alternatively, if the problem occurs on the next bottle, I will personally inform you about it.

Just one (silly?) question -- I just notice an expiration date printed on the invoice as 03/10. That means year 2010, right? Thanks again.