kallitype....my head hurts

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eddie gunks

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hi all,
this alt stuff is making my head hurt. every time i think i get it i soon become very confused again.

my latest difficulty is with the kallitype sensitzer. can i mix it together right away or do i need to mix it right before i use it? i seem to get both answers from searching the archives.

basically when should i mix my 20% ferric oxalate solution with my 10% silver nitrate solution?

thanks

eddie
 
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eddie gunks

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one more thing. i mixed up my FO . it is not in solution! it seems to be settling to the bottom of the bottle. what should i do now? how can i keep it from happening next time?

thanks again.

eddie
 

Dana Sullivan

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Did you heat the ferric oxalate solution when you initially mixed it from powder? If not, take the solution you have and warm it up to 120F for a minute or two. If you do it for much longer than that, you run the risk of producing extremely grainy prints. If you have already heated the solution and it still refuses to disolve, you can let it settle for an hour or two, then decant the clear solution off the top and discard the dregs.

This gives me pause to think, though, that you may run into some problems when trying to use this ferric oxalate to print kallitypes. Ferric Oxalate that has a hard time disolving is usually hard and chunky when it's in 'powder' form. This means that there is almost always lots of impurities bound up inside the large crystals. Oxalic acid, one of the main ingredients in powdered ferric oxalate is the death of kallitype prints. It will cause the silver nitrate to almost instantaneously fall out of solution, making your coating solution impotent.

There are two simple tests for the purity of ferric oxalate:

1) 2 drops of 10% Silver Nitrate solution are added to 5 drops of ferric oxalate 20% - 27% on a watch glass. Observe. If after 5 minutes there is no precipitate formed, the ferric oxalate is free of oxalic acid.

2) 2 drops of 10% Potassium Ferricyanide are added to 5 drops of ferric oxalate 20% - 27% on a watch glass. Hold solution to a 40-60 watt bulb and observe the color. The color should be a brilliant green/turquoise. Expose the solution to sunlight or intense UV. If the ferric oxalate is pure, the solution should rapidly change to a dark prussian blue. If no change, or very little change occurs, the ferric oxalate is contaminated with ferric nitrate or ferrous oxalate.

Good luck, and keep us up to date on your progress!
 
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tom_micklin

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Eddie,
Have you read Sandy King's article on Kallitype?
Either at http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Kallitype/kallitype.html
or on alternativephotogaphy.com
It clears up a lot of the confusion.

I always have trouble getting FO into solution, but for some reason when I get it from Bostick and Sullivan, it's less of a problem.
I don't heat it. I just mix it and let it sit a few hours and shake up the bottle a couple times and it's fine.

Good luck,
Tom
 
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eddie gunks

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thanks everyone.

i have read the unblinking eye, but not sandy's article. i was trying to find it but could not. thanks for the link!

it looks like my FO is slowly going into solution. i keep shaking it and this morning there are less solids in the bottom.

dana, thanks again for the help and the pm.

eddie
 

Colin Graham

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Yeah, Sandy's article is a must. Really cuts down the learning curve. I started off getting the FO already in solution- the fewer variables the better starting off. Good luck, it's a great process.
 

philsweeney

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Hi Eddie,

My most recent batch of FO would not go into solution heating at 120F. So I reheated again at 150F the next day and did get it into solution. Later a test print (compared to same print printed previously) verified to me the FO was OK. As I continue with this batch I am going to try heating at 150F for a couple of hours.
 
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eddie gunks

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thanks everyone. today is the day for my first printing. i think i will try VDB for today (if the sun co-operates!). tomorrow i will see how i do with kallitype! stay tuned.

eddie
 
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