Life of working solutions in trays

[Blacknoise]

Hi there,

I'm setting up the temporary dark room in the bathroom tonight, going to do a little printing later and some tomorrow morning before I got work. I was just wondering what the life of the chemicals (stop and fix, I'll mix some new dev probably) is in the trays and if they'll keep ok overnight left in the trays. I use Ilford chems.

Thanks

Rob

 

[Ian Grant]

Fixer over 6 months, I left my 2 bath system set up with tray covers in early June and it was still perfect when I began using it last week again. I did add a pecautionary dip in fresh fix. Stop bath at least a month, covered

Developer, I always use fresh as I exhaust it each session, but covered overnight, perhaps longer but quality will suffer.

Ian

 

[Blacknoise]

Cool, thats good

You mean if I dont exceed the capacity of the dev and then cover it with cling film (saran wrap) it'll be ok in the morning?

Thanks

 

[Photo Engineer]

It depends on the fixer and stop bath and on the air flow over the trays. Covered trays are better than open trays. Acid fixers keep more poorly than neutral or alkaline fixes under identical conditions.

I have kept some fixers so long that they crystallized. This was a purposeful keeping test. I reconstituted the fix by adding more water and it worked. This test was done with acid, neutral and alkaline fixes. The acid fix went bad first forming a nasty smelling white milky mix when fresh water was added. So, if it does dry out, if it remixes clear, it will probably be ok.

Many developers will not last overnight. There are 2 or 3 on the market that will last up to one week in a covered tray.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

I'd put it in a bottle as that's far more effective. I prefer to always use fresh dev and fibre based papers are generally more finicky.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

Overnight in a covered tray will be ok for the stop and fix. The developer is more chancy as some will keep and some will not. Dektol and Liquidol will keep.

PE

 

[Blacknoise]

Im using Ilford multigrade, I think I've got a bottle for the dev lying about somewhere, I'll just cover the other chems...

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

I don't know about the liquid concentrate developers, but dektol is surprisingly resilient in the tray. If you are like me (troublesome day job interfering with hobby), I can't stand up long enough to exhaust a liter of 1+2 dektol in a single session.

I started covering the tray with saran wrap, with the wrap in contact with the liquid and sealed at the edges, to cut down on set-up/clean up time.

I have used the same liter of working dektol for 3 sessions over the course of eight days, sealing the tray with saran inbetween. This is about as scientific as I get: on day 8, I reprinted the first neg at the same f-stop, time, size and same development. Sure, I could tell the difference . . .barely. The black was weak, but not so much that either exposure or development tim/temp wouldn't fix it. Someday when I learn to scan and post, I'll put them up here.

I don't agree with canting and decanting into bottles, no matter how airtight. The surface area available for gas exchange in a cellophane sealed tray is miniscule; canting and decanting introduces huge amounts of oxygen, which are then sealed into the bottle.

Disclaimer: my pseudo-science above involved rc paper, three or four contact sheets and maybe forty 5X7 proofs. I don't know if fiber paper would have a different effect on tray life.

 

[Ian Grant]

PQ (Phenidone/Dimezone) developers have a far longer tray life than their MQ (metol) equivalents, Multigrade is a PQ dev.

Don't expect too much, do a test and throw it out if it's no up to standard.

Ian

 

[Bob Carnie]

The OP question was a great one.
I am very cautious about leaving working solutions overnight, but there are times when I have mixed large trays for a printing session and crap got in the way and took all my time.
I have put large plastic in contact over the fix , stop , hypo clear and dev , and came back the next day and have not seen any adverse effects.
I am using Dektol for a developer and PE answer made me feel a bit better about this practice.

I usually mix 20-30 litres for each tray so as you can imagine, thats a lot of money to waste.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have tested developers in open trays out to 120 hours. This includes a number of developers. I will not repost or comment on that data. It is here for anyone to see, including the photos, but since I have a vested interest in one of the developers, I think I have said enough.

If this post is offensive or goes too far, I ask the moderators to remove it.

PE

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Bob - you should give Liquidol from the Formulary a try. My understanding of it is that it uses an advanced developer technology in the formulation to give extra long tray life and processing capacity.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I am slowly , and I mean slowly starting to mix all my chems from scratch, I have had a lot of help from people here, Ian G in paticular has been a great resource.
Having a long lasting dev that I can mix from scratch would be a great thing. Maybe Ian sees this and has the formula for Liquidol or something close.
I mix in very large working solution batches and it seems people like my work so I am in the darkroom more now than ever.

Bob - you should give Liquidol from the Formulary a try. My understanding of it is that it uses an advanced developer technology in the formulation to give extra long tray life and processing capacity.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Sorry Bob, but AFAIK, there is nothing similar to Liquidol on the market. And, the formula has not been published.

PE

 

[Bob Carnie]

PE -thanks btw what does afaik mean?

Sorry Bob, but AFAIK, there is nothing similar to Liquidol on the market. And, the formula has not been published.

PE

 

[Andrew Moxom]

As Far As I Know

 

[Ian Grant]

As Far As I Know

There are published commercial formulae for replenishqble paper Developers. that will out live anything currently available, these could be tweaked for warm or cold tones.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ian;

You are correct that almost any replenished developer will outlive most any "single use" developer, but there are single use developers that will outlive other single use developers. That is my only point of interest here.

PE