Ilford Seleium Toner Life

[Doremus Scudder]

The reason we advise using Washaid with selenium toner for FB papers - as opposed to doing a standard process and then following on merely with a selenium toner stage (and no washaid with it) - is because our findings showed that it better ensured optimum archivalness happened. ie Its because Washaid enhances the rate and quantity of any unwanted residual thiosulphates being removed from the paper - and it will be more reliably done than just by simply following a dev,stop,wash stage - and then simply selenium toning it....

... both those stages are definitely more beneficial - than if washaid alone is done, and more beneficial than if just selenium toning is done (and no washaid). ... Its the combination of both together that we found to be most effective.

I don't know which Ilford outlet you contacted, but I doubt this is from the UK... the English grammar is horrible and the syntax is not native. See the areas I emphasized above.

That said, please note that the response does NOT refer to mixing selenium toner TOGETHER with WashAid, but considers them two, separate processes. I don't think you got the answer to your question from them.

I'll give you mine, however

Mixing toner with a wash aid is wasteful and uneconomical and environmentally unsound since you have to discard lots of active selenium toner after the capacity of the wash aid has been reached. Use the wash aid separately after toning and replenish the toner as I described above. Better system; more efficient and economical.

Best,

Doremus

 

[MartinP]

Writing as a slightly older, British, English speaker who has occasionally taught English as a foreign language, I have to say that expecting a grammatically correct and unambiguous language style from any average Briton under the age of, approximately, twenty-five is very, very optimistic...

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Silveror0,

This is the first time I've heard that mixing selenium toner with a wash-aid "ensures better archival permanence." What doesn't seem to be addressed here is how toner+wash-aid compares with toner followed by wash-aid. Certainly, no wash-aid at all is not optimum practice. One interpretation of the above could simply be that one needs to use a wash-aid to ensure "better archival permanence," something I would not argue with.

I do, however, question the notion (not expressed in the Ilford correspondence you quote, by the way) that toning and then giving the print a bath in a wash-aid is somehow not as effective as doing it all in one step. I can't really imagine that the "archival permanence" would be negatively affected by waiting the few minutes that it takes for a print to tone before using the wash-aid. Certainly no more than just leaving the print sit in a water bath for the same time...

Until someone shows me otherwise, I'm going to believe that toner followed by wash-aid is just as effective (i.e., not any different than) mixing the wash-aid with the toner. Sure, it eliminates a step, but other considerations make dividing the processes more desirable.

The problem with mixing toner with wash-aid, as I see it, is that the wash-aid exhausts very, very much faster than the toner; it has both a smaller capacity and a shorter lifespan, since it cannot be kept more than 24 hours without it being destroyed by oxidation. That means, you have to discard a whole lot of still-active selenium toner when the wash-aid capacity has been reached, or when 24 hours is up, whichever comes first. I find this wasteful, uneconomical and environmentally irresponsible. I replenish and reuse my toner; none of it ever gets discarded - very economical and eco-friendly.

As for "archival permanence": a well-processed print, however processed, is one that contains very, very little residual hypo and very, very little residual silver. There are test for these (the most common being HT-2 and ST-1 respectively). I check the last print of every run with these tests and never have had anything but excellent results with my work flow (two-bath fix, toner, wash-aid for 10 minutes, running-water wash for minimum 60 minutes). Excellent results are excellent results and support my position that a wash-aid after the toner is equally effective for ensuring adequate washing of fiber-base prints.

It would be interesting to hear what the Ilford techs have to say specifically about toner+wash-aid vs. toner followed by wash-aid.

Best,

Doremus