How long does powder fixer last?

[mexipike]

Haven't been around here in a while but back after a somewhat ongoing bout with digital. Have a few rolls of film lying around and have everything I need to develop except fixer.. However a bunch of very old kodak tri-chem packs. Remember those? They contain a sealed packet with a powdered dektol, stop bath and kodak universal fixer. It's cold here and I don't feel like getting on the motorcycle and going to the shop for fixer and am toying with the idea of using the fixer to develop some film. I'll be using rodinal, probably a water stop and the old kodak universal powder fixer. What should I mix it to? I'm sure the directions on the pouch will be for print. I'm developing acros 100 if that matters.


Thanks,

John

 

[mexipike]

So I went ahead and opened it up. It wasn't clumpy at all and came out in a nice clean powder. It makes 8 ounces of print developer. I mixed it. It smells like fixer! I think I'm going to dilute it with another 8 ounces of water to cover both my rolls of acros then go for it. I'll leave it in there for like 20 minutes or something and let y'all know how it goes.

 

[Ian Grant]

It makes 8 ounces of print developer. I mixed it. It smells like fixer! I think I'm going to dilute it with another 8 ounces of water to cover both my rolls of acros then go for it. I'll leave it in there for like 20 minutes or something and let y'all know how it goes.

Try a bit of scrap film first, the film leader works well. the Twice the clearing time.

Ian

 

[fschifano]

The stop bath bath should be ok too, so go ahead and mix that up. I really recommend the use of a stop bath. And no, you don't need to dilute the fixer further for film. If anything, more dilute fixers are used for prints, while films usually get the stronger dilution. What you have there will be fine. The Dektol is probably bad, but if it mixes up and isn't dark brown, it's ok too.

 

[mexipike]

The packets I used from the plasic bag worked fine, took along time to clear though. then i used a packet from the these really old cardboard containers and it never really fully cleared. I put some new fixer in this morning and solved the problem.