Instant Mytol? Custom PC-TEA?

[fhovie]

Yes - I read the thread in the formulas section - It still leaves me unwilling. I like Mytol - I like the convenience of PC-TEA better. So - do I mearly add Sulfite to PC-TEA or make an A-B solution for Mytol in Glycol or TEA? I will ony use it one shot - I will likely use it in a Mytol 1:1 or 1:3 configuration. I will not mix up 50ml of stock when it takes 50ml of stock to make 1 liter. I would like to make enough stock at one time to last a while - maybe for 25 liters of 1:1 equivalant. Sure - I can do the math but I do not want to experiment too much unless it is the only way to be sure. I am interested in tried and true equivalants that I can use. Any ideas??

 

[Jordan]

You coulda sent me an e-mail and I would've been happy to help... :]

My aim in making Instant MYTOL was to simplify MYTOL itself. I figured that there was no reason to use sodium ascorbate (harder to find and less stable than ascorbic acid) and both sodium sulfite and sodium metabisulfite. So I cut out the metabisulfite, replaced sodium ascorbate with an equimolar amount of ascorbic acid, then determined the amount of TEA needed to get the stock solution to pH 8.2. This is the essence of Instant MYTOL.

I like PC-TEA and use it a lot. But I also liked MYTOL because I could use recommended times and dilutions for XTOL without thinking too hard about it. Relative to stock MYTOL, working solutions of PC-TEA are more alkaline (pH above 9 IIRC) and yet more dilute in active developing agents (P and C). Qualitatively, it's almost as if you took stock MYTOL, diluted it 1+3, then added a bunch of base to bring the pH up (and thus the activity as well).

The higher concentration of P and C in MYTOL relative to working PC-TEA makes it impossible to make up an "Instant MYTOL" solution in organic solution that has all the developing agents needed for 1 L of stock developer in 20 ml of concentrate (i.e. 1+50, like PC-TEA). The best I could do was 50 ml (1+19), simply due to the limited solubility of P and C in mixtures of TEA and propylene glycol. I agree with you that this is a limitation, but keep in mind that most people use XTOL (and therefore MYTOL) 1+1, and the 50 ml -> 1 L conversion rapidly becomes 25 ml -> 1 L, close to PC-TEA.

If you want to use your PC-TEA stock solution to make up a developer similar to MYTOL, you can use PC-TEA-Tol, another monster I created, which is in a recipe somewhere here on APUG and is also at my website (along with the rationale for its creation). It takes a lot of PC-TEA syrup and sodium metabisulfite to bring the pH down to MYTOL levels. Rather than duplicating that information here, I'll let you have a look there.

I'm pretty tired so just let me know if any of the above did not make sense...