HELP LIST OF CHEMICALS FOR DIVIDED DEVELOPER CACHET AB 55

In my quest to find the formula make up of Cachet AB 55, I found the list of chemicals used in a Precaustions that came with the package. They are as followed along with some notes.

Sodium Sulfite - common developing agent in developers; can prevent the formation of many undesirable by products during development. Darkroom Cookbook page 195.

Hydroquinone - builds density in combination with other developers. Darkroom Cookbook Page 182

1-Phenyl-3-Pyrazolidone - is actually Phenidone. used alone in sulfide solutions, it is very fast but extremely soft working and is only capable of producing negatives of low contrast. In combination with hydroquinone it produces developers with superadditivity that are even more efficient than MQ developers. Phenidone-based developers keeps better than those based on metal. You can read more in Darkroom Cookbook page186. Page 21, 1st paragraph optimum amount of Phenidone to hydroquinone is 7%

Sodium Tetraborate is Borax. Its a mild accelerator. From what I have read this can be used in Solution B solely. Darkroom Cookbook page 195 but see page 178

All information comings from the Darkroom Cookbook 3rd Edition.

As mentioned, I am not a chemist and would like to know where to begin in terms of amount of chemicals to be used in Solution A and Solution B. The only thing I know for sure is that Borax can be used for Solution B only. If anyone can provide a starting point or a solution it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and assistance.


Edward Vargas

The formula for this product is probably a trade secret. As a chemist I can tell you that there is no way that you can determine the exact amounts of the ingredients in this product. You could pay an analytical laboratory to analyse it for you but that would be expensive. You can get a crude estimate of the amount of each chemical by looking at the MSDS for the product.

If it is any help there are many formulae for two bath developers given on the web. Perhaps one of these would be helpful to you.

Mr. Kock,

I do thank you for you for your time and assistance.

According to Mr. Eric Joseph the formula died with with Ike Royer who did the mixing and packaging. I have looked at all kinds of two bath developers and I am seriously looking at these two:

Barry Thorton

Solution A Sodium sulfite 80g
Metol 6.5g

Solution B 12g Sodium metaborate (Kodalk) Is Kodalk just Borax?

develop 4-5 minutes at room temperature. Comes close to AB 55



David Vestal From the Darkroom Cookbook 3rd

Solution A Metol 3g
Sodium Sulfite 50g

Solution B Borax 5g
Sodium sulfite 50g

Recommended development times

Solution A 3 minutes

Solution B 3 - 5 minutes

What bothers me is that some two baht developers say, "develop at 68' or 70' and process films at different times for solutions A and B; this gets me confused. Where as I would like to develop at room temperature from 68' to 85' and all films at the same time, something with AB 55 offered.

So if you can put me in the correct direction if would be appreciated. As mention I am not a chemist.

Thanks,

Edward

Each of the two developers you mention will behave somewhat like D-23. In fact D-23 can be used as a bath A. Because there will be some development occuring in Bath A these two developers will be temperature sensitive. For the two you mention allowing film to remain longer in bath A will increease density and contrast. Many two bath developers use a bath A that has a sufficiently low pH to prevent development from occuring in it.

Edward -
You might try something along these lines:

part A:
sodium sulfite - 50g
hydroquinone - 5g
phenidone - 0.5g
water to 1l

part B:
borax - 5g
sodium sulfite - 10g
water to 1l

my guess on times would be 3-4 minutes in each part - if you notice streaking in the negatives, you may want to add about 35g of sodium sulfate to part B - and this should also work with the temperature range you specified

I tried Cachet once, because I like Diafine so much and thought a developer for normal speed with a bit more contrast but the other virtues of a divided developer might be good. I got the normal speed (a bit more than standard actually but not the push of Diafine) and the bit more contrast - the tonality looked fine - but along with it grain like giant golfballs. I've never seen grain like that from 35mm Tri-X before or since. That doesn't seem to have been usual but it was what I found.