Ilford Paper Developer Stock and Working Strength

Hello forum!

I just discovered this Ilford Multigrade bottle, full, stoppered. No idea how old it is but it's sealed, full and kept in the dark.

instructions are 1 pt concentrate to 9 pts water.

I'm just getting started with darkroom. A friend gifted me a huge darkroom kit so this is all discovery for me. I have all manner of tray and paper sizes. I have 8x10 trays out now.

That's a 4L carboy behind the Multigrade developer. Common sense tells me to just mix 10% working soln' till I get indoctrinated.

Should I transfer the Developer non mixed concentrate into that 4L Falcon Carboy?

Thanks for feedback,

Gary

I wouldn't. I'd divide the stock into much smaller containers( ideally 125 cc) and fill to the brim and unless you can use each container completely at one printing session, fill what remains in the container with inert gas. The aim s to stop the concentrate oxidising

pentaxuser

Generally you simply use the concentrate from the original bottle as needed until it runs out or goes bad.

I suggest discarding that bottle and starting with fresh chemistry (and materials). That is a pretty old Ilford bottle design and those developers do not have an infinite shelf life even if unopened. For reference, Ilford’s instructions for Multigrade Developer indicate a two year shelf life for unopened bottles properly stored.

Follow the directions. For what it’s worth, by doing that you will avoid so many of the problems people post about. B&W film (and especially print) processing are really quite simple things to get right by following manufacturer directions, taking care, keeping things clean.

Filmic1 said:

Hello forum!

I just discovered this Ilford Multigrade bottle, full, stoppered. No idea how old it is but it's sealed, full and kept in the dark.

instructions are 1 pt concentrate to 9 pts water.

I'm just getting started with darkroom. A friend gifted me a huge darkroom kit so this is all discovery for me. I have all manner of tray and paper sizes. I have 8x10 trays out now.

That's a 4L carboy behind the Multigrade developer. Common sense tells me to just mix 10% working soln' till I get indoctrinated.

Should I transfer the Developer non mixed concentrate into that 4L Falcon Carboy?

Thanks for feedback,

Gary

Click to expand...

When you open the bottle, if the colour of the developer is anything slightly darker than a good white wine it will be usable but may exhaust earlier.

I will go to even smaller bottles. I decant larger bottles I use into 100cc which means having 10 bottles per litre and that may not suit everybody but my reason is 100cc + 900cc water makes enough developer to last one evening's work.

MG Developer can be diluted to make up to 1400cc of working developer. )100cc + 1300cc) water which I use when making 12x 16 prints which ensures there is enough developer to completely cover the paper. The only small downside to this is, I give it 1 min 30 secs in the developer to let the blacks develop completely. I sometime extend the dev times to 1 min anyway.

One of my mentors in the early days said. 'You are paying all that money for the silver so why waste it'? You had to be careful in those days though, extended print developer could fog the paper. MG Developer is much better than that, I have yet to fog the paper with dev times even as much as 3 mins.

The post immediately before this one by Millpool, I would tend to disagree with discarding it. I bought a 5 litre bottle of MG5 concentrate very nearly 21/2 years ago and when opened it was immediately decanted into 10 x 500cc brown glass bottles. It is as good now as the day I first used any of it. If you go by the colour suggestion I made previously so long as it has not seriously discoloured then it WILL be good to use. It is one of the few film (ID11, D76 and Rodinal) and paper developers (Ilford MG) that are extremely stable so long as they are stored correctly'

Thanks a bunch to all!!

(I just found, to make 8oz i.e. working volumes, 6X plastic liquid packs of Technidol. What was this fellow shooting with all this...??!! this stuff is for Tech Pan and LPD4 films. I used to work a copy darkroom (graphics, draughting, copy) in the early 90's but I've forgotten most of what I learned and worked with.)

I also found five packs of D76 powder. stained packaging but the powder is 'still' powder.

Filmic1 said:

Thanks a bunch to all!!

Click to expand...

Filmic1 said:

I also found five packs of D76 powder. stained packaging but the powder is 'still' powder.

Click to expand...

If the D76 packets are still sealed then they should be OK to use. I'd make up one pack and initially try it on a film where the first 8 negs are unimportant. In the complete darkness cut the first 12 inches of film out of the camera and respool the remainder onto the take-up spool Develop the film cut out of the camera If the negs are fine then the D76 is good to go

pentaxuser

Filmic1 said:

Thanks a bunch to all!!

(I just found, to make 8oz i.e. working volumes, 6X plastic liquid packs of Technidol. What was this fellow shooting with all this...??!! this stuff is for Tech Pan and LPD4 films. I used to work a copy darkroom (graphics, draughting, copy) in the early 90's but I've forgotten most of what I learned and worked with.)

I also found five packs of D76 powder. stained packaging but the powder is 'still' powder.

Click to expand...

sometimes when one uses gift materials it works out, sometimes it is a headache.

There is a fundamental difference between paper developer and film developer.
If you use sub-standard print developer, you waste some (now quite expensive) printing paper.
If you use sub-standard film developer, you often waste film and lose photographs.
With that in mind, what I would do if I found a big bottle of old print developer is compare how one tray of it it works with known good print developer. If it works well - even developing in a reasonable time with good contrast and solid blacks - then I would use it as long as it performs well.
If not, it gets discarded.
Don't mix it all up at once. There are a number of ways to extend the life of the concentrate a bit - @pentaxuser has suggested one - but basically once you open it, the clock is running.
Personally, I would break it up into 5 one litre bottles.
The normal approach with a bottle of this sort of print developer is to open it and use the concentrate until it is either gone or it starts to deteriorate - no special preservation steps - but you usually need really high volumes to do that with a 5 litre bottle.

MattKing said:

There is a fundamental difference between paper developer and film developer.
If you use sub-standard print developer, you waste some (now quite expensive) printing paper.
If you use sub-standard film developer, you often waste film and lose photographs.
With that in mind, what I would do if I found a big bottle of old print developer is compare how one tray of it it works with known good print developer. If it works well - even developing in a reasonable time with good contrast and solid blacks - then I would use it as long as it performs well.
If not, it gets discarded.
Don't mix it all up at once. There are a number of ways to extend the life of the concentrate a bit - @pentaxuser has suggested one - but basically once you open it, the clock is running.
Personally, I would break it up into 5 one litre bottles.
The normal approach with a bottle of this sort of print developer is to open it and use the concentrate until it is either gone or it starts to deteriorate - no special preservation steps - but you usually need really high volumes to do that with a 5 litre bottle.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Matt!

Understood. Going to buy fresh stock and not get too excited with all this..

Set your treasure aside for now.

Buy fresh paper and developer and fixer. Start with this.

mshchem said:

Set your treasure aside for now.

Buy fresh paper and developer and fixer. Start with this.

Click to expand...

This is good advice.

Using old chemistry when you're unsure of how things are supposed to work, means you will be always wondering what happened if something goes awry.

Learn the ropes with fresh chemicals , once you have an understanding of how it works you can try the old stuff.
Another month or two is not going to make any difference to really old chemisty. It'll either work correctly or not.

Re: the paper developer. Make up a small quantity of working strength developer, e.g. 25cc stoc + 225cc water. Develop a test strip that has been exposed to room light. How long does it take to start darkening? Multigrade I don't know, but with Dektol or Ilford ID-62 (aka PQU) it's 10-15 sec. You can also judge by the color of the working strength solution: light tea is OK, Coca-cola is not; but, the real test is the first one: does the developer do what it's meant for, blacken light-exposed paper.

I have a neat contact printer with negatives sitting on the easel now. So I'll try that. Trays hold 1,500 cc's. I'll just make 1000cc batches. I have 2 L working Ilford Paper Fix that I tested with a negative strip and it cleared.

bernard_L said:

Re: the paper developer. Make up a small quantity of working strength developer, e.g. 25cc stoc + 225cc water. Develop a test strip that has been exposed to room light. How long does it take to start darkening? Multigrade I don't know, but with Dektol or Ilford ID-62 (aka PQU) it's 10-15 sec. You can also judge by the color of the working strength solution: light tea is OK, Coca-cola is not; but, the real test is the first one: does the developer do what it's meant for, blacken light-exposed paper.

Click to expand...

Holy Mackinaw, that Ilford paper developer sure worked. I used a test strip of expired but sealed 4x5 Kodabromide (1975) paper, 25 sec exposed to a wide open enlarger light. It went black in the developer in ~ 30 sec.
As per your advice.

Developer was the colour of darkish tea. It had some precipitate when added to the water, which dissolved quickly and the working strength MG Devel. quickly lightened.

Thanks a bunch, Bernard. Great stuff.

I'll do that contact sheet now.