HC110 keeping properties

[Bill Banks]

I have a two year old 500ml bottle of HC110 concentrate which is about 80% full and has turned a rich red colour. Do you think I can still use it? The Kodak fact sheet says (I think) that the shelf life of a partially full bottle is only 4 months but I keep reading here that HC110 has Rodinal-like keeping properties. Can anyone help?

 

[JBrunner]

Drop a snip of exposed film in a dilution and see if it turns black in a minute or two. If it does, it is still potent. You must make a dilution, as HC110 by itself will not develop anything.

 

[Whiteymorange]

I've used old (4/5 years) HC110 and had it worked fine. I recently came into 3 unopened bottles from maybe the '90's - not so good. They develop the film, but not as well as they should. Thin negs at the best. I'm going to try some "work-arounds" but I no longer believe the stuff is immortal.

 

[mikebarger]

I don't know about partial bottles, I tend to go through it in a reasonable amount of time once opened.

But old full bottles haven't disappointed me.

Mike

 

[Don Wallace]

I have used HC-110 with that colour and it was about the same age as yours. It seemed to work ok. Give it a test first, though. If it is ok, decant it into smaller bottles, filled right up to the cap.

 

[PHOTOTONE]

The color of HC-110 syrup does not seem to indicate the activity. I think HC-110 is near eternal.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I'm with Whitey - I bought up a lot of darkroom gear that had a mid 90's almost full pint of hc-110. The developing action was weak, when compared to the solution that I mixed from a fresh bottle that I had bought a few months before the winfall job lot presented it to me, and with it the partial bottle. I did this test after seeing the wimpy contrast on one roll, think I blew the time or temp calcuation some how. I went out and shoot at test roll and develop half of the zone 1-8 roll in one tank of old and other half of zone 1-8 in new, both at dilution'h' - my favourite adaptation of half of B.