Is There a DIY Home Brew B&W Film Fixer

[Xmas]

Yes when you use raw chemicals you need to adjust formula for crystal or anhydrous.

I only buy anhydrous cause I need to hand carry it home.

 

[Edubarca]

Hello my friends. The problem I have with commercial fixer is that I don't develop many rolls. I might just develop 3-6 per year, This means that if I prepare one gallon of fixer, it will turn useless in a very short time and I have to throw it away, Is there something I can do re revitalize long term shelving of prepared fixer?

 

[Donald Qualls]

Make one-shot fixer. I did it for a couple years.

Just get sodium thiosulfate crystals (at a pool and spa store locally, cheap and no shipping costs), and mix 60 g of crystals per liter of water, then discard after one session (it'll actually fix about four rolls without excessive exhaustion). This is not a rapid fixer; it'll take about six minutes, at a minimum (I'd give ten) to do the job, but it's incredibly cheap. You can speed it up a little by adding ammonium chloride, but unless you're fixing tabular grain films (Delta or T-Max or Acros) it's not necessary.

 

[Mr Bill]

Is there something I can do re revitalize long term shelving of prepared fixer?

When you approach the end of shelf life for your fixer, you can extend it by adding some sodium sulfite. How much? It's probably safe to add, say, half of what the original formulation calls for. Or if you have the ability to do a chemical analysis you could add enough to restore the original chemical concentration.

This is assuming a fixer based on thiosulfate. I don't know if there is any bad effect from adding too much, which is why I suggest adding only a conservative amount of sulfite. Now, you cannot keep adding sulfite forever; eventually the breakdown product, sulfate (SO4), will begin to hinder the speed of fixing. You can probably test for this with a "film clearing test."

...mix 60 g of crystals per liter of water, then discard after one session...

Donald, you would probably also be well-served to throw in at least a pinch of sulfite. As the thiosulfate begins to sulfurize the sulfite will restore it to thiosulfate. Without such a preservative it is possible (I don't know if it's an actual problem for immediate use) that you might end up with small amounts of sulfur trapped in the emulsion. Fwiw I used to read about Ansel Adams using a so-called plain fixer, which I presumed was like yours. I thought, of gosh, even Ansel Adams doesn't know to add some sulfite. But then... I saw, in one of his books, his formula for "plain fixer." It turns out that his "plain fixer" did indeed include sulfite. Anyway, I would say it's always a good thing to have at least a little.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Donald, you would probably also be well-served to throw in at least a pinch of sulfite. As the thiosulfate begins to sulfurize the sulfite will restore it to thiosulfate. Without such a preservative it is possible (I don't know if it's an actual problem for immediate use) that you might end up with small amounts of sulfur trapped in the emulsion. Fwiw I used to read about Ansel Adams using a so-called plain fixer, which I presumed was like yours. I thought, of gosh, even Ansel Adams doesn't know to add some sulfite. But then... I saw, in one of his books, his formula for "plain fixer." It turns out that his "plain fixer" did indeed include sulfite. Anyway, I would say it's always a good thing to have at least a little.

Used as a one-shot for a single developing session (up to 4 rolls in a liter), sulfuring shouldn't be a problem. If you try to keep the fixer longer than a few hours, it might be.

 

[cmacd123]

have you considered using a liquid rapid fixer? decant the excess concentrate into a Glass bottle and it will keep for a year or more. (even if they say 6 months) a litre of concentrate will make 5 liters, but Just mix a half liter of working strength at a time. (typically 1 part concentrate to 4 parts water)

depending where you are Ilford, adox and also Foma sell a half liter of concentrate.

Adox also sells a "Baby Size" 100 ml fixer concentrate which can be mixed 1 part to 4 or 1 part to 7 for film, and is rated to keep 2 years if not opened. Those could be kept in stock and mixed as needed.

Adox has a powder fix to make a litre of working strength fixer.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Seawater used to work back in the day?
Or apparently (there was a url link here which no longer exists)?

seawater was used s a hypowash-treatment prior to washing but not as a fixer. a print still needs to be properly fixed. many fixer DIY formulae exist but it's simpler to leave it to the pros and purchase ready-made. There is little cost advantage ,if any, to mix your own.

 

[DMJ]

I also use sodium thiosulfate crystals and fix for 10 minutes. Can't stand the smell of the ammonia in rapid fixers. For alternative to chemicals check these guys and the sustainable darkroom:

http://www.londonaltphoto.com

 

[relistan]

For home brew fixers, I've used @Rudeofus' rapid-ish neutral fixer with very good results: https://www.photrio.com/forum/resources/a-neutral-quick-fixer-formula.357/

I'm surprised he didn't mention it. Probably being humble EDIT: I see his comments in this thread pre-date this fixer formula.

I recommend this fixer because:

1. Neutral
2. No smell
3. Clears plenty quickly. Very nearly as fast as commercial rapid fixer
4. Quite cheap
5. I can keep dry components on my shelf and mix when I need to

I'm on my second batch now and the first batch lasted for about 5 months of intermittent development before I ran out of capacity. Note the caution he put in the instructions about fixing a roll of film shortly after mixing to prevent mold.

 

[Donald Qualls]

seawater was used s a hypowash-treatment prior to washing but not as a fixer. a print still needs to be properly fixed. many fixer DIY formulae exist but it's simpler to leave it to the pros and purchase ready-made. There is little cost advantage ,if any, to mix your own.

From what I've read, salt/sea water will in fact fix film (I wouldn't have thought so given the low solubility of silver chloride) -- but it takes literally days to do the job. At least two days (one figure I've read was 51 hours). As long as there are pool & spa suppliers local to me, I can make plain hypo, which works in minutes. It even works on tabular grain films, but will only fully fix them if used in a two-bath format: half the fixing time in bath 1, and the rest in bath 2.

 

[Alan Johnson]

If you don't want your negatives to last for decades and have plenty of time you may walk in Fox Talbot's footsteps:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/fixing-in-table-salt-solution.107457/

 

[JWMster]

FWIW, I added the chems for TF-3 to my darkroom. I'm going to give this a shot because the commercial fixers always seem to run low at the wrong time and then take days to show up... especially from Freestyle which I like very much, but often seems to ship by camel. So I'll find out soon enough whether Ralph is right (probably) or whether its worth the bother.