Kodak Sepia Toner -- bad toner or user error?

[jnovek]

I have never used Kodak Sepia toner before but I'm very familiar with the use of Ferricyanide bleach.

- When I mixed the "toner" packet from the Sepia toner, it came out clear and and had almost no smell.

- I fully bleached back my prints and washed them for two minutes.

- I placed them in the toner bath under a safelight and then... almost nothing. In two minutes, the image only took on a very faint brown tinge. The toner turned very slightly brown, a little darker than fresh Dektol.

- Interestingly, it seems that the image redeveloped fully, because I tried washing and developing one of the failed prints in Dektol and nothing happened.

- I was using the toner at around 30 deg C (as I understand this provide the densest and darkest tone). The prints were working prints that I had done on Arista.edu RC/VC paper (rebadged Foma, I believe).

Is my toner bad? Should it smell strongly the instant I mix it? Could I have contaminated it? The bottle that I mixed it in was new, and I thought I washed out the tray thoroughly, but the tray was last used for hypo. I'm 99.9% certain that the failure was not the bleach. I am very familiar with the use of Ferricyanide bleach as touching up with bleach is part of my normal darkroom process. The stuff is only like $3 a pack, but I want to make sure that I'm not doing something wrong before I buy another one.

Jason

 

[pgomena]

I'm not sure what the problem could be. The 2-minute wash seems a bit short, though. Even though it's RC paper, the emulsion may be carrying too much bleach into the toner. I'd wash for 5 minutes and see if it makes a difference.

Peter Gomena

 

[jnovek]

It was bad toner. I picked up another package, mixed it up and it looked great. The stuff that came out of the first toner package was clumpy and white. This stuff was finer and yellow, so I think that the toner had simply gone bad.

5 property-toned prints hanging up in the darkroom right now!

Jason