HC=110 as print developer...

[John51]

About 1 oz (30ml) HC110 syrup per quart (1 litre) + 1 tbs (15g) washing soda and you'll think
you have Dektol.

I read that here some time ago, the metric measurements in brackets are mine.

I finally got my darkroom ready for action and gave the above formula a go. I used sodium carbonate, not store labelled washing soda.

Mixed up a litre on Saturday evening. My first test was to cut an 8x10 into 8 for a developer time test. Exposed to room light and put into dev at 30 sec intervals, pull at 5 mins and that's a range of 1.5 to 5 minutes.

Every piece went full black within a minute. Decided on a 2 minute dev time. Established an enlarger time for contact prints and made a few. I can't tell the difference between those and some Dektol contacts I made over 2 years ago.

I tire quickly now so called it a day after 8 sheets, including the testing. Sunday morning did 3 contacts and the dev was still good. Made another contact just now, Monday afternoon. It still works fine. That's about 40 hours in an open tray. I'm wanting contacts of my last roll to give to family so I plan on making a print every am and pm until it dies.

 

[John51]

Test over. The recent contact print looks about a stop lighter.

36 hours of tray life is plenty enough for my slow pace.

 

[mrosenlof]

Cool! I need to try this. I need a print developer that I can mix from a long-lived concentrate.

 

[MattKing]

Cool! I need to try this. I need a print developer that I can mix from a long-lived concentrate.

Kodak PolyMax T is my solution.

 

[John51]

There was a post of someone trying HC-110 as is, dilution A and said the blacks weren't that good. Black as can be for me. I guess that's down to the washing soda/sodium carbonate.

Will try 25ml of 110/litre next. That would work out to be less than a quid per litre of working solution.

 

[mrosenlof]

Kodak PolyMax T is my solution.

My print dev has been a home-brew with Phenidone, Ascorbic acid, sodium carbonate, sodium sulfite (I think sulfite) and a dash of KBr. I don't have the exact recipe with me at the moment. It works well, and tray life is decent too. HC-110+ would be more convenient.

 

[mrosenlof]

found my developer formula. I keep a supply of PC glycol concentrate so I start with that to provide the phenidone and some of the ascorbic.

http://home.alphalink.com.au/~simgrant/jackspcs/pde72.htm

 

[koraks]

@mrosenlof I assume that formula gives fairly warm tones? It looks interesting; I'll certainly give it a try. How well does the concentrated stock last?

 

[esearing]

You can even try pyrocat variants as a print developer. It stains the paper slightly and produces a warm tone. Can be used for second pass (bleach/redevelop) to get a nice overall brown/olive tone. 5:5:500 will do up to 4 8x10 sheets and will be a bit slower than normal paper developer.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

About 1 oz (30ml) HC110 syrup per quart (1 litre) + 1 tbs (15g) washing soda and you'll think
you have Dektol.

I read that here some time ago, the metric measurements in brackets are mine.

I finally got my darkroom ready for action and gave the above formula a go. I used sodium carbonate, not store labelled washing soda.

Mixed up a litre on Saturday evening. My first test was to cut an 8x10 into 8 for a developer time test. Exposed to room light and put into dev at 30 sec intervals, pull at 5 mins and that's a range of 1.5 to 5 minutes.

Every piece went full black within a minute. Decided on a 2 minute dev time. Established an enlarger time for contact prints and made a few. I can't tell the difference between those and some Dektol contacts I made over 2 years ago.

I tire quickly now so called it a day after 8 sheets, including the testing. Sunday morning did 3 contacts and the dev was still good. Made another contact just now, Monday afternoon. It still works fine. That's about 40 hours in an open tray. I'm wanting contacts of my last roll to give to family so I plan on making a print every am and pm until it dies.

sounds like a convenient and economic solution; thanks for the tip.

 

[M Carter]

Cool! I need to try this. I need a print developer that I can mix from a long-lived concentrate.

Just get a bottle of liquidol - I feel it looks better than Dektol, it's a liquid concentrate that lasts ages, and it's designed for long tray life. Pour your tray into a bottle, add some canned air, come back weeks later. I've used it literally with mold in it.