Good Processing Technique?

Since finding APUG, have found myself moving from 35mm/MF to 4x5, 5x7 and most recently 8x10. With the format changes have come the desire to try Alternative Process as well, 1st Ziatypes, now VanDykes and hopefully soon Kallitypes.

Question I have is do those that use more than one alternative process have seperate trays, tongs, magic bursh, shot glass etc for each process? Have been advised by people who's opinion I respect that this should be the case and admit that I have not been diligent about doing this, so wondering how bad my technique has been. Plans are to have seperate tools for each process, but then that does add to the expense of each process...while admiting that the price is small and if an item becomes contaminated then it has to be replaced and two sets will be required.

As always, Thanks in advance for all your input...this is such a great source of information (and not a bad place to find that other have learned the hard way so the rest of us can try and avoid the same pitfalls...after all there are plenty of pitfalls for all of us to find ).

Mike, I use a different brush for kallitype and pd/pt and also have different shot glasses to mix them in. What I don't use are different trays, but I do wash after every time I process. Also, I have different jugs for pot ox for each of the processes.

photomc said:

Question I have is do those that use more than one alternative process have seperate trays, tongs, magic bursh, shot glass etc for each process? Have been advised by people who's opinion I respect that this should be the case and admit that I have not been diligent about doing this, so wondering how bad my technique has been. Plans are to have seperate tools for each process, but then that does add to the expense of each process...while admiting that the price is small and if an item becomes contaminated then it has to be replaced and two sets will be required.

As always, Thanks in advance for all your input...this is such a great source of information (and not a bad place to find that other have learned the hard way so the rest of us can try and avoid the same pitfalls...after all there are plenty of pitfalls for all of us to find ).

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Mike,

I have seperate coating brushs for silver based processes and palladium based processes. Clearing trays can be used for different processes just keep them clean. Fixer trays are always used for fixer. Developer trays for silver are different than trays used for palladium developer.

As for shot glasses I clean them and use them for all processes.

My 2 cents,

Don Bryant

photomc said:

Question I have is do those that use more than one alternative process have seperate trays, tongs, magic bursh, shot glass etc for each process? Have been advised by people who's opinion I respect that this should be the case and admit that I have not been diligent about doing this, so wondering how bad my technique has been. Plans are to have seperate tools for each process, but then that does add to the expense of each process...while admiting that the price is small and if an item becomes contaminated then it has to be replaced and two sets will be required.

Click to expand...

Most persons will recommend that you have separate brushes, trays, etc. for different processes, especially for Pt./Pd. where the cost of failure can be so high. I don't, however. I use the same brushes for coating kallitype and palladium, and the same trays for developing. In fact, for most prints I use one-tray processing so that all of the chemicals go through the same tray.

I used to be concerned about brushes and when I used hake brushes, which are relatively inexpensive, I kept separate ones for silver and Pt./Pd. processes. Now I use the same Richeson brush to coat kallitype and palladium and I have not so far seen any problems from this. But I am very scrupulous in washing the brush after use, and in storage. I was a bit concerned about this in the beginning, but with a Richeson going for close to $30 for a 1 1/2" brush I figured it was worth the trouble to see if I could use the same one for both processes. However, kallitype and palladium are really such similar processes that they are really like twin brothers in that the sensitive iron is ferric oxalate in both processes.

I do, however, use differnt developers and clearing baths for kallitype and palladium.

I don’t want to seem casual about this because in fact I got to great lengths to keep my trays, tongs, etc. clean, which means a very thorough cleaning every month or so, or when any type of sediment builds up on the bottom.

Sandy

Thanks Jeremy, Don and Sandy...you reply's actually surprised me. Now don't misunderstand, I go through a clean up process after each session - trays, brush and shot glass get a good wash and wiped dry. Same as with any silver process. As to trays, yeah Don I do the same thing fix/fix, developer/developer etc. Even have a seperate tray for toner and do have a seperate trays for citric acid+LiPd to tone the VDB.

Jeremy, how are the kallitypes coming...very interested in hearing how that is going. Did you mix everything from scratch or buy a kit? Sorry about the questions, but been thinking about trying these.

mike
Im pretty poor (thanks to photography) the only thing I use that is seperate for each process is brushes. I have one I do with cyanotype and one for VDB. now that I bought the richeson brush I have one richeson for the VDB and have a second one for the paladium kit that hopefully will arrive soon (tomorrow I hope).

aside from that I use basically the same three/four 16x20 or 11x14 trays for all of em. havent really noticed a problem.

photomc said:

Jeremy, how are the kallitypes coming...very interested in hearing how that is going. Did you mix everything from scratch or buy a kit? Sorry about the questions, but been thinking about trying these.

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They are still hit & miss, but I need to switch out the paper I was trying to use. I was using Cranes, but I can't do more than one coat w/o bleeding. Will try some stonehenge rising and arches platine when I get some more time.

I already had everything here, so I just mixed it from scratch. You already have everything you need except maybe developer and the silver nitrate--I've got a bunch of the silver nitrate so I can mix you up a 25 or 50mL bottle if you want to try it out.