Gainers Original MC-sodium carbonate developer concentrated in glycerine

Raghu,
The injection goes into a measure sodium carbonate solution that is already prepared, so this takes about 15 seconds, and is much much much more convenient, especially will very small batches that i need for ortho litho work in the darkroom. I realise this may not work, but the first step is feasibility.

This morning I was able to prepare a much better developer solution. I started by adding the required metol to the glycerol at room temperature and gradually raising the temperature while stirring. Getting the metol into solution is the limiting factor with this brew of mine, so it made sense to me early this morning to do that first at minimum temperature, and go from there. I gradually raised the temperature using my small microwave up to 160 deg. F while stirring. At this point, the metol is barely in solution. I did not want to raise the temp any more.

Next, I added the ascorbic acid gradually while stirring. The temperature had dropped to about 130 deg. F, and the solution was very cloudy. I continued gradually heating and stirring until everything was dissolved. This took about 180 deg. F. When the solution cools to room temp, I will adjust the level by adding a small amount. It was much harder dissolving the ascorbic acid this time, but I saw no sign of a chemical reaction as I did the first time when I started with dissolving ascorbic acid, then adding the metol to that.

The solubility of metol in glycerol is surprisingly low, on the order of propylene glycol, or about 1% as supersaturated solution at 160 df. I wasn't able to find any data on that solubility, only vague references from Patrick Gainer on these forums back in the day. I paraphrase him on one time he was writing about dissolving 10g ascorbic acid and 10g metol in, I believe, 240ml of glycerol. He remarked often about using glycerol interchangeably with propylene glycol in his experimenting. I also recall another board user who was able to get 2g metol and 10g ascorbic acid into 100ml propylene glycol, but there was lots of confusion on how this was done.

Based on my experimenting, I don't think glycerol is better than propylene glycol for what I'm trying to do. They are likely both about the same. Getting metol in is definitely the problem. Later today, I will do a snip test of this developer on a short piece of film generously exposed to daylight and measure the Dmax. I was getting 0.84 the other day on my first try and I had well over 3.00 on my first test of the water version of the original Gainer MC developer. If it looks good, I can do an actual in camera test. However, this whole exercise appears to be on the edge of failure.

I am having fun as I think about ordering some propylene glycol.

Hello,
reading about this developer/approach made me curious. As I had all the chemicals at hand (and a day off plus ennui) I gave it a try. I took 100ml of glycerol, and because I had no microwave, I heated it up within a waterbath, up to 90 deg. celcius. Took ages to dissolve 20g of ascorbic acid, but it worked. The 2g of metol dissolved a bit better afterwards, but there were still a few particles left and hard to get into solution (Stir until dissolved was the mantra ) It helped to have topped it up to 150ml with glycerol. Finally I had 200ml of a clear, very lighly amber syrup.
Took a few frames, made up a working solution, 4.5ml of the syrup, 450ml of water, plus 2.5g of washing soda. Developed Fomapan 200@200 for 7:30, using 1min of initial agitation, 1inv every 30s. To my surprise it worked:



Overcast day, probably messed up focus and exposure, but I will give keep on testing this developer. Any ideas how long it will last and work?

Anyway, have beautiful new year!
Thanks a lot for posting this developer/approach/idea.

All the best,
Brian

Brian L said:

View attachment 415095

Overcast day, probably messed up focus and exposure, but I will give keep on testing this developer. Any ideas how long it will last and work?

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Very glad to hear you have it working before me! The main problem with a water bath is keeping steam from getting into the soup. Water in the glycerine may shorten the shelf life from dreaded oxygen in water. Kept dry, it should have a shelf life of a year or longer. Did you use D76 stock or 1:1 times?

Looks like your using it at 1:100 with the same accelerator concentration.

Brian L said:

Anyway, have beautiful new year!
Thanks a lot for posting this developer/approach/idea.

All the best,
Brian

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Dear gealto2,
I did use (roughly) D76 1+1 times. Thanks for pointing out that I used it 1:100 (with the same amount of accelerator...)...next time I will use 1:50, and try something between 5 and 6 minutes. If the 'revenge of the waterbath' is gonna take place, I'll update - maybe it's gonna be helpful...
Hopefully I'll find the time to try different films with this + make a print. I'm eager to see how it's gonna look like.I'm just happy that there was something like a negative. Three years ago I tried to mix some PC-Tea and it just didn't work out...
Kind regards,
Brian

Brian L said:

ut...
Kind regards,
Brian

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Brian, by the way, sodium carbonate is extremely soluble in glycerol. I plan on using the accelerator separately so I can change or modify it. So in a 5qt kit, you would meed 30g sodium carbonate mono-hydrate. That may be possible, but need to leave extra room for that. Some may like to try it. Not sure at all if it would all go in or what order to mix. This document says 98.8 parts per hundred solubility. Have fun. Sorry, file to big to attach...

I did a developer snip test today using the newly mixed developer and it appears to be working properly. I fully exposed about two inches of film and then processed it using same time and temperature used for the original wet Gainer Original formula. The density appears almost the same wet but I need to wait until it dries to measure with densitometer.

For those who brew their own developers using polyols for storage like propylene glycol or triethanolamine how many do a crude test after mixing a new batch to catch any variables that changed a bit? I tested Dmax for a short piece of film fully exposed for this reason, but not completely sure how valid that is. It's certainly not comprehensive, but my first batch came out extremely thin and could have been caught in this simple way quickly without wasting as much time. I am not really into testing developers that nobody every used before, so this is new territory.

I sure do love using the little measuring syringe for measuring developer. Makes me feel like being addicted to my developer or something. Watching Andrew O'neill's videos on using PC512 borax with xray film got me thinking how nice that would be.

gealto2 said:

Brian, by the way, sodium carbonate is extremely soluble in glycerol. I plan on using the accelerator separately so I can change or modify it. So in a 5qt kit, you would meed 30g sodium carbonate mono-hydrate. That may be possible, but need to leave extra room for that. Some may like to try it. Not sure at all if it would all go in or what order to mix. This document says 98.8 parts per hundred solubility. Have fun. Sorry, file to big to attach...

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Interesting progress so far!

Do note here that introducing hydrate sodium carbonate will add water to the glycerol. It's very hard to get it anhydrate unless you get it straight from the oven. This and additional impurities also found in the carbonate (like copper or iron impurities) may shorten your shelf life if you do that. It's worth testing it to see.

relistan said:

Interesting progress so far!

Do note here that introducing hydrate sodium carbonate will add water to the glycerol. It's very hard to get it anhydrate unless you get it straight from the oven. This and additional impurities also found in the carbonate (like copper or iron impurities) may shorten your shelf life if you do that. It's worth testing it to see.

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Thanks very much for the comments and you are correct that anhydrous would be required. This was only an afterthought to me, so didn't scrutinize. Correction: it would take then about 25g in a 5 qt. batch of anhydrous sodium carbonate.

gealto2 said:

Thanks very much for the comments and you are correct that anhydrous would be required.

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Isn't that Gainer's conclusion as well in his article in Unblinkingeye where, if I recall correctly, he said he was unsure which version of Sodium Carbonate he had obtained but concluded it was anhydrous as he placed a certain weight of it in an oven and found that there was no weight change afterwards?

pentaxuser

Here are the photos of my first attempt to put Gainers Original MC-sod. carb. monohyd. into glycerol.



This was my equipment and materials. The glycerine is a high quality one that I got on Amazon for thirteen bucks. The small microwave is only 600w, but still needs to be turned on for 5 seconds to gain ten degrees or so temperature. Best to use highest power setting, since it duty cycles on lower, making it much harder to use.



The thermometer was one I got at Walmart a few years ago, goes up to 220 f, which is adequate to get above boiling point of water to checking water content of glycerine. If present, steam bubbles will form and raise to the top. This temperature was after attempting to add metol the first time.




I stirred the glycerol with the hand of a stainess steel spoon, which worked very well. Note what looks like bubbles, but is undissolved material of some sort due to my errors in mixing the metol.



This close up shows the little pieces of something that shouldn't be there. They looked more like filaments but look more like just clear crystals here. These formed right after I added the 1g metol to everything else. I tried to add it slowly. but with so little that was not possible. It was all dumpted in at one time, and somehow cause a chemical reaction, probably a sufation of the glycerol, that formed these strange little particles and destroyed the metol. In the next post, I will show the negs I got when testing this. I hoped these little particles would turn back into metol when added to water. They did disappear, but the developer acted like an ascorbic acid only developer. A learning experience.

Here are the results of using that first bad batch of developer.



The strip at the very top is correctly developed film using Gainers Original MC wet. Sorry my light pad is so small. The botton two, of course, are the testing exposure that are extremely flat. So flat I velive that only the ascorbic acid was active in the developer. I did try to manipulate one to look good, which is the most uper left negative of the lower two strips. The film is expired tmy using my Minolta X700 in aperture priority mode set to ei100. Note the high base fog despite severe underdevelopment. From left to right, +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. Since this camera has no mirror lock up nor is it usable in metered manual mode, I use it only for film testing.


Notice there are some good mackie lines around the tree branches. Tomorrow I may be able to test develop some film in my second version of the developer, the one that works. In that case, I added the metol first all at once at room temperature, then heating while stirring up to the point it fully dissolved, which was at 160f. In this way the metol was fully dispersed in the glycerol before heating. I would get metol is only about 0.1% soluble in glycerol at room temperature. Therefore even the 1% level at the end of high temperature is a supersaturation situation, even though that seems very low. On gradually adding the 10g ascorbic acid while heating and stirring, full solution required 180f. I know from research that ascorbic acid is only 1% soluble at room temperature. Ten percent is obviously supersaturated. One of the mysteriously wonderful thing about polyols like glycerol and glycols is that supersaturated solution are stable at room temperature and below, unlike most solvents.

The tongue of the first film I developed in the wet version of this developer has a density of 2.91 developed 9 min at 73 F kentmere 100. Same film clip test yesterday with latest version of glycerolled MC developer with same film at 70 F 9 min was 2.62, a little lower than expected at least partly due to lower temperature.

Today I just processed a short roll of the same film that I tested on the same day as the wet version. This time I used the glycerolled version at 1:100 with the same sod carbonate concentration of 6g per quart monohydrate. If this gives better acuatance than I got with the original wet version, it is the one I will use for my camera film in the future. This is not a solvent developer, so not sure if dilution gives improved acutance. Generally, higher ph does increase acutance, so I used this higher than I would get if I diluted both the developers and accelerators the same.

I developed this roll Kentmere 100 for 12 minutes at 68 F. My darkroom is in the utility room in the basement, so when warmer out it's colder there and vice versa. I use a foam cooler with about 5 inches of water and an aquarium heater set for 70 F in it. My dilution was tempered in the cooler, but the sodium sulfite was not, so got colder today on the shelf. The negatives look all good, so I am very happy. Will scan when dry.

FYI, ascorbate alone without metol is somewhat active in sodium carbonate solution at pH 10.3:

Here are the scans from negs processed to today in MC-glycerol sod carb at 1:100 for 12 min. at 68 F.


Top two strips are Gainers Original wet at full strength, 9 min at 73 F.
Bottom two are from today using glycerolled version on same at 1:100 12 min. at 68 F. These are slightly thinner, which is good since the first were clearly over developed.
The sequences from left to right on all strips are +2, +1, 0, -1, -2 cemtered on ei50 using minolta X700 my only good for film testing because it has no mirror lock and can't take really sharp pictures camera.


This is a converted image from today and was exposed at ei100, a full stop more than I normally use. Notice the stronger mackie lines now, a real improvement to me. This now my personal favorite developer. My phone scans are simulated VanDyke Brown prints using my phone in color mode with a very cold light tablet, making my negatives look really cool, kind of xrayish, which becomes warm brownish on inversion after I remove some saturation.


Another shot with same settings as last picture. I really like this new developer now with the higher acutance than before. Also more economical if that is even possible. I used 3.6 ml of my concentrate for this roll of 35mm. I will not try it at 1:3 since the acutance at 1:1 here looks about right to me. Grain is also very fine as well, hardly visible. It was fun pulling this old Gainer Original Developer out of the scrap heap of time and sticking it in glycerol for shelf keeping and super convenience. Thanks to Pat Gainer and old the old message boards including this one.

Looks very good with this film.
Could you give the formula and mixing instructions for the glycerol version as a summary?
And a name for it?

Yes they all look good but for me the negs developed in Gainer's original ( the short-life one ) at box speed still look the best I base this on your neg shot at EI 50 and -1 However darkroom printed it may be that what looks like a slightly better neg using Gainer's original developer in fact has no advantage over your MC Glycerol neg

I'd second Alan's request above. It might be worth placing it in the articles section as a permanent source

pentaxuser

Alan Johnson said:

Looks very good with this film.
Could you give the formula and mixing instructions for the glycerol version as a summary?
And a name for it?

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MC-glycerol would be the correct name. Similar to PC-glycol both with open ended accelerators.

Formula for film giving 5 quarts of working solution at 1:50 or ten quarts at 1:100 in 100 ml glycerol
or for paper giving 2.5 quarts at 1:25. I use sodium carbonate monohydrate as accelerator, using 6 g per quart for films or 12 g per quart for paper in the working solutions. Use d76 times as a starting point for determining developing times and temperatures using sodium carbonate. For other milder accelerators, more developing time will be needed based on experimentation.

metol 1 gram
ascorbic acid 10 grams
anhydrous glycerol 75 ml

If uncertain of the quality of your glycerine, you may heat it to a little over the boiling point of water, where any water should turn to steam and exit. Any additives are likely not good. Then cover with saran wrap using rubber band to keep moisture out, then allow to cool.

Pour glycerol into small pyrex beaker and add the metol while stirring. It will not fully dissolve until heated to approx. 160 degrees F. Place beaker in microwave, and heat for a few seconds, then remove and measure temperature. Determine approx how many seconds at takes to raise temperature about 10 degrekes F, and use that to gradually heat the solution while stirring in the metol. With a very small microwave, this may be five seconds, it may be less with a larger one. Do not overheat the glycerol any more than needed to get the metol to fully dissolve. It should all dissolve by 160 degrees F. The solution will a very light amber color.

Next, add the ascorbic acid gradually 1-2 grams at a time while stirring as gradual heating is continued. The temperature will go down measurably after each addition. Continue heating and stirring until solution is completely clear, which should require no more than about 180 degrees F. Total time at this point is about half an hour. Cover beaker with saran wrap (this is a clear plastic food wrap) using rubber band to seal, and allow to cool to room temerature. Then add glycerol to make 100 ml solution. Glycerol expands a lot with heating.

anhydrous glycerol to make 100 ml

I mixed about half a gallon of sodium carbonate monohydrate solution by adding 12 grams per quart. For use with paper, this is used directly. For films, I mix this 1:1 with water.

Thanks. For Metric users 1 US quart =946 ml, within the limit of error, 1 liter.