im tired of grams and would rather use a teaspoon

[removed account4]

John, my point was that right now you may be using powdered KBr, but next time you get cubic crystals (I have a jar of each) and these vary by quite a bit in weight vs volume. There was a long thread on this in which I posted photos of the crystals and powder.

PE

thanks PE
i have a m+p and grind my crystals down to be a powder before i use them. they take forever and a day to dissolve as a chunk.

 

[nworth]

It depends a lot on what you are doig. Some things need accuracy, others don't. I use teaspoons when mixing fixer. It works fine. But I use the same spoons filled to (roughly) the same level each time, and I measured the weight of each chemical (sulfite, metabisulfite) each spoon held before I adopted the practice. Developers might be another matter. But Weston used teaspoons in compounding his amidol developers. If you look at his original prints, you notice they are not very consistent, but if you are Weston it may not matter.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Why not just work in fractional volume cubits? Or a standard of measure based upon the weight of a decaying goat head, like most of the English system? My gosh, how simpler life would be if Napoleon had won at Waterloo.

 

[removed account4]

Why not just work in fractional volume cubits? Or a standard of measure based upon the weight of a decaying goat head, like most of the English system? My gosh, how simpler life would be if Napoleon had won at Waterloo.

i would do that, but cubits are a length, not a fractional volume, and i don't have a goat.

what i have are a handful of formulas i use regularly and plastic spoons ... and a scale i would rather not use.
the link to steve anchell's darkroom cookbook and reference to page 333 ( post 11 )
pretty much answered my question and gave me the info / gram to tsp factor i was looking for. ( thanks alan ! )

it doesnt' seem very complicated for me to re-write my recipes by tsp and see if it makes that much of a difference ..
if it turns out my film gets hosed, my emulsion doesn't work, my cyanotypes are dead, my fixer doesn't fix, and my print developer/reversal developer/tintype developer tanks
i'll know for the next time to use the scale and not teaspoons...

one think i have noticed here on apug, and other photography websites is that people do their best to overcomplicate simple things
sometimes because it is the way they do things, and have done things for years, or just because it is that much more fun to take 45 mins to do something that
could take 1 minute if done a different way. i'd rather make things LESS complicated. i have better thing to do with my time than try to untie gordian knots.

===

thanks for the advice and experiences ( related to munitions )
and commentary, its been a fun thread to read

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have used these for measuring gunpowder for reloading and they work great. I also have a very sensitive scale for when I'm loading strictly for target shooting, but for hunting and general use rounds these Lee powder measures are fast and very accurate. I found they work best as a dipper and then use a card(like a business card) to scrape the top level. Also, chemicals like metol won't harm the Lee measure like they do metal measuring spoons. here's a link: View attachment 163052

I too used the Lee spoons for reloads, but a real powder dispenser cuts the grains of powder which improves accuracy. Target shooting benefits from use of reloads using a scale though. No doubt.

PE

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, I sometimes prep stuff in the darkroom, prior to the day's session, then briefly head back into the kitchen to help my wife preparing breakfast. I'd hate to confuse grams with measuring spoons, because I don't know how well benzotriazole would substitute for baking soda.

 

[NedL]

i would do that, but cubits are a length, not a fractional volume, and i don't have a goat.

What!? No goat! Oh no, you can't develop or print without one!

I use measuring spoons pretty often, for things where it doesn't make much difference. I always mix my hypo with a teaspoon measure.... I know I'm making it a little stronger than it needs to be, so it's not a worry. ( And with calotypes, you can tell it's done fixing when there are no traces of yellow silver iodide visible... then just go a few minutes longer to be sure. ) If I need the wash water to be a little acidic, I add a teaspoon of citric acid to the bottle, or if the hypo needs to be alkali I add a "pinch" of washing soda. For the sodium sulfite, I noticed it took a little less than a tablespoon to make a 1% solution in the bottle I'm using, so I just measure it that way... I can't imagine it makes any difference if it's 0.8% or 1.2%... you should see how much the various recipes people use vary(!)... much more than the inaccuracy from my spoons. I do weigh out most things though....

 

[Photo Engineer]

John, have you never heard of cubic cubits? Or have you never heard of milli cubic cubits? Volume and fractional both! And there is 1/2 cubic cubit (on average) in every empty goats head. (upside down with eye sockets intact and plugged as well as horns plugged)

PE

 

[MartinP]

I think filtering out undissolved solids could get a lot more 'interesting' when removing goat-brain, though I suppose it might give a new twist to 'souping my film' . . . ?

 

[Truzi]

Right. What's a cubit?
(From the old Bill Cosby Noah bits.)

 

[Sirius Glass]

John, have you never heard of cubic cubits? Or have you never heard of milli cubic cubits? Volume and fractional both! And there is 1/2 cubic cubit (on average) in every empty goats head. (upside down with eye sockets intact and plugged as well as horns plugged)

PE

What about the micro cubic cubits?
What about the pico cubic cubits?
What about the atto cubic cubits?

 

[removed account4]

thanks !

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Why not just work in fractional volume cubits? Or a standard of measure based upon the weight of a decaying goat head, like most of the English system? My gosh, how simpler life would be if Napoleon had won at Waterloo.

The nations of the world can be divided into two groups. Those that use the metric system and those that put a man on the moon. Nuff said?

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Speaking of the metric system there is a unit of feminine pulchritude, the Helen abbreviated H. According to Greek legend she was so beautiful that her face "launched a thousand ships." This leads us to a more conveniend unit the milliHelen, mH. Each unit is worth one ship. When I was in college the science and engineering students would rate women seen on campus in mH. "Look at that blond she's a least 700 mH."

 

[Photo Engineer]

What about the micro cubic cubits?
What about the pico cubic cubits?
What about the atto cubic cubits?

ABSOLUTELY!

 

[Photo Engineer]

And this leads us to the newly discovered qbits!

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

Oh, and how long can you tread water?

 

[Arklatexian]

....and this is how failed Caffenol started, earning it's bad rep for not working properly (or at all).

It's simple; You cannot, cannot measure out solids using amount, you have to weigh it, the density and your "topping" will differ from each "teaspoon".
Baking, sure, go ahead.

For making photo-chemicals? Nope.

The metric-scale is not only easy, it's simple.
1000 milligram is 1 gram
1000 grams is 1 kg
1000 kg is one ton.

100 milliliters is 1 deciliter
1000 milliliters is 1 liter
-> 10 deciliters is 1 liter

Stick with it, the rest of the world (minus Liberia and Myanmar) is waiting, for you to drop your cup of foot-pound per square inch silliness

Ahem! Helinophoto, 1000 kg = 1 metric ton, here in the USA, it is sometimes known as a "long ton" as it weighs more than 2000 lbs. By the way does Jamaica use the metric system now? I did not know that Liberia and Myanmar do not use the metric system. My scales with their metric weights are easier to find in my darkroom than a spoon from the house assuming that said spoon was the correct size. My spoons for coffee/tea are from Germany and are much smaller than our "standard" teaspoons. I find that measuring by weight is much more satisfactory than weighing by volume.......Regards!

 

[dasBlute]

off the cuff, I think 1 us tsp ~= 37,222,971,064 cubic picocubits, but you're gonna need some time to measure that out....

 

[Helinophoto]

The nations of the world can be divided into two groups. Those that use the metric system and those that put a man on the moon. Nuff said?

Ah......but it was an European that did that (The father of the good old terror-weapon, the V2, Wernher Von Braun, I would assume the Brits know his work quite well).

After his death, it seems someone at NASA (ok one of their partners at Lockheed) decided it was a good idea to convert all the old German recipes to teacups and spoons and this was the result: http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

See? Just like the Caffenol stuff! A German gets it right and it works until someone starts messing around.

And here is another incident: http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/jet-s-fuel-ran-out-after-metric-conversion-errors.html

I would hate to be on that flight ^^

SO, to avoid your house exploding; go with the metric units, true story. ^^

 

[removed account4]

Just like the Caffenol stuff! A German gets it right and it works until someone starts messing around.

for the record, i have mixed the wrong proportions of caffenol ( on purpose ) and it worked fine
i still can't imagine how someone mixed the wrong amounts and it did not work
unless it was the wrong ingredients ... ( as i suggeted earlier in this thread )
( again, i am talking caffenol c, not the versions that use salt and KBr and other stuff as additives )
caffenol is the most forgiving developer there is. you can process film in just coffee with nothing else or with
other things mixed in
... but it isn't forgiving if one doesn't use the right ingredients ...

of course this is the internet, anything can be true so YMMV

 

[Helinophoto]

-I was just putting a bit of a tongue in cheek there Jnanian

I think most of the confusion is regarding the Caffeniol-H and L variants (with potassium bromide).
I know I cocked up one recipe (H) while still using my scale with 1 gram resolution, when I re-did that recipe, I had gotten hold of a 0.1 gram resolution scale (I just call it a 'druggie-scale') and found that the lump I had used before, amounted to about 5 grams of potassium bromide per liter. (my 1 gram resolution scale still indicated the lump as 1 gram while my 'druggie-scale' indicated 5 grams)

Needless to say, my 1 gram scale doesn't seem to be very good (it's digital and everything )

At least there was no fog (but not much else).

According to the 'official formula', the difference between H and L regarding vitamin-c is only 6 grams, so, at least to achieve the recipe as intended, a 6 gram difference would be very hard to measure out using some kind of tea-spoon, I have no idea what happens if you stand-develop with too little or too much Vitamin-c, maybe nothing.

Still, if people are using everything else than a scale, debugging a problem is all but impossible.

- I am no caffenol-expert though (I Know you are), did a few rolls 4-5 years ago and it generally worked very well for the films i tried it with.

 

[removed account4]

-I was just putting a bit of a tongue in cheek there Jnanian

sorry for taking what you said serious, didn't have much coffee to drink yet to day

- I am no caffenol-expert though (I Know you are)

naaaah, i'm not an expert, pretty much a novice in most of what i do.

i am sure this will offend some but
once someone proclaims they are an expert in something, .. its the end
in other words, (the way i see it) --- novices are eager to learn, discover and experiment, and all too often experts rest on their laurels and reputation ...
and "self proclaimed internet experts" ... all too often they are a scheming 13 year old girls making believe
they are omniscient 40-50something year old men.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I too used the Lee spoons for reloads, but a real powder dispenser cuts the grains of powder which improves accuracy. Target shooting benefits from use of reloads using a scale though. No doubt.

PE

I agree 100% PE, but I only use my scale and trickler for forming target loads. For hunting rounds the scoops or my Redding powder measure works just fine and the animal(usually deer or bear) can't tell the difference as to which I used. I would feel plenty safe using scoops/cups for mixing my fixer (TF2), but something like Pyrocat-HD/MC or WD2H Pyro is a different story. Scale all the way for those.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I think that many of you are missing a significant point here. Some ions such as Iodide and Bromide control sharpness and some such as sulfite control grain and speed - this being a very very rough generalization, and so unless you are looking for this type of variation, or variations in toe or shoulder shape, you are not seeing the true picture of what minor observations cause.

PE