Ilfochrome

lightwisps · Aug 4, 2013

Does anyone know where I can get Ilfochrome chemicals? I have heard Freestyle but not sure and have heard some places in Europe have them. I am desparate sitting on all this damned paper and wasting space in my freezer with it. Thanks in advance, Don

wildbill · Aug 4, 2013

this may help:http://www.largeformatphotography.i...o-get-Ilfochrome-and-RA-4-Chemicals-in-Canada
Freestyle did mention it in their past catalogs but I don't remember how long ago that was.

lightwisps · Aug 4, 2013

Thought about contacting Rob there. He is a fountain of good information. Don

AgX · Aug 7, 2013

Ilford have a listing at their website with their distributors and their ranges.
Have a try at their german distributor.

AgX · Aug 7, 2013

Ilford has a listing at their site with their distributors and their ranges.
Have a try at their german distributor Le Bon.
(But in the past those only sold via a retailer.)

Stephen Frizza · Aug 7, 2013

Frustratingly here in Australia CR Kennedy is saying no to bringing in any more Ilfochrome chemicals and if my maths is correct I'm going to have a little more paper than chemical stocks....If anyone can find out a source that will ship global I too would greatly appreciate...if not i suspect i shall be making a substitute from scratch.

DREW WILEY · Aug 7, 2013

It's all formally discontinued, and what remains has largely been stockpiled by a handful of users. You just gotta get lucky. Making the bleach
yourself doesn't seem very realistic and will involve some nasty acid. The fix is just ordinary non-hardening black and white fixer. The latest developer is proprietary. If you substitute an ordinary black and white paper developer like Selectol Soft you'll get a color image, but not an ideal one. Post a "want to buy" ad on the relevant photo forums, like this one, and see if anyone responds.

anikin · Aug 7, 2013

I've got an untouched 2L box of ilfochrome chemicals sitting in the basement, and since I have no paper, and not likely to get any more, I would be willing to sell it. However, I'm not sure that there is an easy way to get it from here to your location...

lightwisps · Aug 7, 2013

Wow, this is great. Of course I want them. I am sure we can figure out the shipping problem one way or another. I sent you a PM with my email address. Looking forward to hearing from you. Don

Rudeofus · Aug 7, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
It's all formally discontinued, and what remains has largely been stockpiled by a handful of users. You just gotta get lucky. Making the bleach yourself doesn't seem very realistic and will involve some nasty acid.

Yes, the dye bleach is acidic, but so is the acid in your car battery. Apart from that it is not going to jump in your sandwich, kill you from toxic vapors or blow up, so I wouldn't be too worried about it. Finding a working recipe, getting the chemicals and investing several precious sheets of remaining Ilfochrome stock into testing is the challenge.

DREW WILEY said:
The fix is just ordinary non-hardening black and white fixer. The latest developer is proprietary. If you substitute an ordinary black and white paper developer like Selectol Soft you'll get a color image, but not an ideal one.

I have made the observation that Dr. Beer's developer yields about the same results as the original Ilfochrome developer, and the funny part is that it doesn't matter which grade of Dr. Beers you mix, the results are indistinguishable. Chances are that any reasonable MQ developer will work here.

ndrs · Aug 7, 2013

I've got excellent results with unmodified Dektol 1:2, original bleach and Rollei neutral fixer in CAP-40. Bleach is the only part I've hoarded.

DREW WILEY · Aug 7, 2013

Rudeofus - I replied to the Ciba bleach hazard on another thread. But let me ask, do you stick your nose into battery acid or sulfuric acid drain cleaner and inhale it? And isn't that ordinary battery acid what some people use in certain cultures to instantly remove other people's faces?
It's just as hazardous as working with any other concentrated reagent, and as everyone knows, acid certainly can jump if you don't dilute it
correctly!

Rudeofus · Aug 8, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
Rudeofus - I replied to the Ciba bleach hazard on another thread. But let me ask, do you stick your nose into battery acid or sulfuric acid drain cleaner and inhale it? And isn't that ordinary battery acid what some people use in certain cultures to instantly remove other people's faces?
It's just as hazardous as working with any other concentrated reagent, and as everyone knows, acid certainly can jump if you don't dilute it
correctly!

I think we come from different worlds here. Neither do I have any inclination to dip my nose into Ciba bleach or battery acid, nor would I suggest immersing anybody else's face i such a liquid. That's what I referred to when I mentioned battery acid: if you allow common sense to guide your actions, nothing bad will happen, and billions of people use car batteries without problems. What does worry me is innocuous looking things that do jump in your face, some of them are listed here.

I do agree that concentrated acids fall into the dangerous category, that's why I don't use them. I have yet to find a photographic recipe that really needs glacial acetic acid, muriatic acid or concentrated (>15%) sulfuric acid, and I call for the immediate conversion or abandonment of all recipes that do list any of these as ingredients.

DREW WILEY · Aug 8, 2013

The reason for glacial acetic acid is that it is by far the most economical way to make up a lot of stop bath or other ingredient needing a lot of
acid bath. Ask one of the remaining dye transfer printers if they'd want to acquire it any other way; and in this case, very precise pH adjustments are critical - it has to be diluted with distilled water. Of course, it is being diluted down to something like 2% for actual use. I have a point source fume extractor plus an industrial fume hood for such applications. But the sad fact is, that a lot of people do not have either common sense or the patience to read a warning label with skull and crossbones printed large. But I use the same level of care for mixing even ordinary RA4 chemisty. I personally know several lab owners who developed extreme sensitiviy to it just thru years of casual contact. And in such cases, a person can indeed die quickly due to anaphylactic shock. Even something seemingly innocuous like the glycols
in inkjet inks can trigger this kind of reaction if a person was presensitized to glycols at an industrial level. That's just one reason why glycols
are gradually being phased out of industrial pigments. I mention this - seemingly overkill on this subject - just because wannabee artists are
a particularly careless category of chemical users - and I have seem way more than my fair share of them really messed up as a result.

Ilfochrome

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