Grant Haist Lith developer formula

Browsing a few days ago, I came across an old thread on Photrio, in which a Grant Haist lith developer was given. As I've never seen or tried this one before, I'm going to mix some up and give it ago, trying out a few dilutions.

Of course I will report back, but has anyone else used it before?

The formula is post #47 on the following link:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/thread....102948/page-2

But if you just want the formula, here it is:

3g sodium sulfite
3g ascorbic acid
12g hydroquinone
2.6g potassium bromide
and sufficient sodium carbonate monohydrate to give a pH of 10.05 (I had to add 10 grams)
Formula is made in 1000ml water

Terry S

tezzasmall said:

has anyone else used it before?

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Not me, and personally I also don't see all that much of an advantage to the addition of ascorbic acid in a homebrew setting. If you leave that out, you're left with a regular combination of hydroquinone, bromide and sulfite. When I printed lith (it's been a while), I used to brew a concentrate of something like 10% w/v hydroquinone with a little sulfite added to it. I'd add a halide (usually potassium bromide or sodium chloride) on a per-print basis, so I generally didn't add it to the concentrate, and instead kept separate bottles with concentrated solutions. Same for sulfite. The concentrated hydroquinone solution is reasonably stable; just mix as much as you'll use within one or two weeks to prevent having half-full bottles sitting around for months at a time (which even the formula you've shown likely won't survive).

That looks like a working-strength formula for line film, intended to be used and tossed.

Go for it. There's a tendency here of people talking about something and not trying it at all. You'll get people telling you lots of reasons why you shouldn't do it. It'll take less time to mix it up and give it a go than it will to read all of them.

Thanks for both of your replies guys. Always appreciated.

Terry S

Rich Ullsmith said:

Sounds complicated. There are such good A+B stuff out there, not expensive, but if you have way more time than money, mix away.

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Don_ih said:

Go for it. There's a tendency here of people talking about something and not trying it at all. You'll get people telling you lots of reasons why you shouldn't do it. It'll take less time to mix it up and give it a go than it will to read all of them.

Click to expand...

TezzaSmall:

Browsing a few days ago, I came across an old thread on Photrio, in which a Grant Haist lith developer was given. As I've never seen or tried this one before, I'm going to mix some up and give it ago, trying out a few dilutions.

Click to expand...

Don: Well, I gave this and a few other formulas a ago, but with no success so far.

Rich U: You have quite a choice of lith developers to buy in the US, but here in the UK, we only have EasyLith. This is good, but it's good to have a choice, hence the experiments. And yes, being retired, I have more time than most to do it all in and enjoy experimenting.

Terry S

tezzasmall said:

Browsing a few days ago, I came across an old thread on Photrio, in which a Grant Haist lith developer was given. As I've never seen or tried this one before, I'm going to mix some up and give it ago, trying out a few dilutions.

Of course I will report back, but has anyone else used it before?

The formula is post #47 on the following link:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/thread....102948/page-2

But if you just want the formula, here it is:

3g sodium sulfite
3g ascorbic acid
12g hydroquinone
2.6g potassium bromide
and sufficient sodium carbonate monohydrate to give a pH of 10.05 (I had to add 10 grams)
Formula is made in 1000ml water

Terry S

Click to expand...

Hi, I took a look through Haist but don't specifically see the formula you listed. In chapter 11, pages 488 to 507 are about litho developers. I sorta expected the formula to be listed standalone, but... after digging through a couple of tables I find one SIMILAR to what you listed, except missing a component, and does not specify a pH (rather it specs sodium carbonate monohydrate at 23.0 g/l).The formula in question is labeled "Pako Lith Developer," and is in Table 2, on p.503. The missing component from your list is sodium formaldehyde bisulfite at 25.0 g/l.

Regarding other formulas, the place I started was the Handbook of Photographic Science and Engineering (Noel Proudfoot editor, 1997 I think). They listed a lith developer formula named D-85b, with separate part A and B. Note that Haist, same table, includes D-85 (not vers. B), but all in a single list.

Going back to the D-85b I searched online and find a formula, also called D-85b, which is fairly close to that in the Handbook... All of the components seem to be within about 10%, or so, except for paraformaldehde - the Handbook says 30.0 g/l in part B, whereas the online version says 37.5 g/l. But... the dilutions to use are a little different. The Handbook says 1 part of solution B to 3 parts of Solution A. Whereas the online version uses 4 parts of solution A. Here's the online formula. https://www.digitaltruth.com/data/formula.php?FormulaID=132

FWIW, one other difference in the Handbook. Part B includes a small amount of phenosafranine, 20.0 ml/l of a 1:1000 solution. I looked it up, it seems to be a photographic desensitizer, AND the Handbook mentions that a yellow or orange safelight may be used after 30 seconds in the developer. So presumably the phenosafranine makes this possible. Fwiw.

Let me know if anything sounds off. In the old days I used to double check all my posts, but not anymore. So if something seems not-right I'll be glad to verify it for you.

Mr Bill said:

Hi, I took a look through Haist but don't specifically see the formula you listed.

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Hi Mr Bill.

Many thanks for all of that info, and it doesn't surprise me that some part of the formula is missing.

I was initially attracted to the (incorrect) formula, as it seemed to be a new one to me, along with being any form of formaldehyde free.

I did try the formula as I first found it, with no luck anyway, but many thanks once more for your input.

All the best

Terry S

Haist seems to quoted on Photrio quite a lot and an assumption on my part was that he was something of a guru

Maybe his lith developer formula was on one of his "off" days

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

Haist seems to quoted on Photrio quite a lot and an assumption on my part was that he was something of a guru

Maybe his lith developer formula was on one of his "off" days

pentaxuser

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As just the first volume of Grant Haist's seminal text "Modern Photographic Processing" is 781 pages, I think that we would all agree that among gurus, Haist was one of the more comprehensive ones
His Photrio In Memoriam thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/grant-haist-great-loss-to-us-all.129636/

Only starting to read about him recently, Grant Haist sounds like he was an amazing and very knowledgeable man in his field.

I have managed to purchase the two volumes on chemistry that he wrote and I am hoping, over time, to digest some, although I doubt it will be anywhere near all, of the books contents.

Terry S