Gold Toner, keeping qualities

[FredW]

Gold toners, do they keep, or should one discard it after each session?

 

[Robert Hall]

Is this a self mix or from a bottle?

If it is mixed with Amonium or Sodium thiocyanate, I undersand the mix is only good for about an hour.

If it is from a mix, it should stay good until it no longer tones.

 

[smieglitz]

I've been able to keep and reuse Clerc's thiourea gold toner over several days until I exhaust it, but borax gold toners seem to go bad within a few hours.

 

[Tom A]

Gold toners, do they keep, or should one discard it after each session?

Ready-made Goldtoner like Tetenals - have excellent keeping propeties. So don't discard it!

Tom

 

[Dave Miller]

I agree with Tom. I use Tetenal until it dies, which is anything up to a year or more dependent on use, just take care not to contaminate it.

 

[FredW]

It's an ammonium thiocyanate based kit.

 

[psvensson]

Resurrecting an old thread to report that I use a home-made toner with about 50g ammonium thiocyanate per liter to tone RC prints, and it keeps at least a day. It didn't work after a week, but I was able to reactivate it by adding some 1% gold chloride solution (of which I use maybe 20-25 ml per session) without adding thiocyanate.

It's a really convenient toner - doesn't smell, not very toxic, single bath, tones in about 5 minutes if the solution is at 100F or so.

 

[UKJohn]

I would fully endorse Dave's comments about being careful of contamination. I was recently doing some Salt Printing (I know this is in the B&W thread) and got some of the fix into the gold toner, a complete right off in seconds and I was using two bottles of toner at a time. An expensive mistake and a definate lesson learnt!!

FWIW...I have found that if more blacks/shadow areas exist in the print (like the brushed edges of Salt Prints) the toner is soon exhausted.

John