Kodak Darkroom Products Discontinued? or just Australia?

One of the problems for Australia is our location. Kodak, Ilford and Agfa, had their manufacturing plants in Melbourne, all of them have gone.

In the graphic arts days these places were built on supplying huge, and I mean huge amounts of chemicals and sensitive materials, to all and sundry. Where I worked we would get a big delivery once a month, with top ups every second or third day. The big delivery was usually between 5 and 10 tonnes of materials, much of which was chemistry. Liquid chemistry is extremely heavy. Dupont, which also supplied a few of our factories at the time, were in the unenviable position of having to import most of their liquid chemicals directly from the USA, this was very expensive.

As the manufacturing in Australia of these products has ceased, or at least as far as I know, ceased, then the importation from either the USA, or Europe is basically all that is left, and this costs.

As all suppliers of these materials have their different priorities it appears to be a foregone conclusion, that somewhere along the way, some will pull certain lines from their shelves. Anything that is liquid based will probably be among the first to be pulled, especially if the numbers, in the overall picture of the company, don’t add up.

Perhaps the labs will have to switch to another supplier of these products, they are available. I will say though, that no other company could compare with Kodak when it came to industrial products. Their range of supply, left all others, in their wake.

Mick.

Mick Fagan said:

One of the problems for Australia is our location.
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As the manufacturing in Australia of these products has ceased, or at least as far as I know, ceased, then the importation from either the USA, or Europe is basically all that is left, and this costs.

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Depending on what you want, and how much of it, you might give Dead Link Removed a try. They're in Japan, which might translate into cheaper and/or faster shipping from overseas. I can make no promises, though; I'm just tossing out an idea.

For chemistry, another alternative is to mix your own. Even if you need to import a few specialized items (say, phenidone or metol), you should be able to find local sources for most of the items that are needed in greatest quantity, such as sodium thiosulfate and sodium sulfite. These items are used industrially in many products, and many are sold in smaller quantities for various home or hobbyist purposes, so with a little digging you should be able to find local sources of supply for many of them.