Maintaining silver nitrate solution

[Anupam Basu]

Ok! I spent the week trying (there was a url link here which no longer exists)and concluded that although I can get okay results on occasion with puddle pushers and brushes, they are inconsistent at best. So I am going to go the whole hog and use the flotation technique.

But if I need about 300ml of 12% sol and make about 300ml of 24% replenisher, that's almost $100 or more of silver nitrate and I want to be sure I can maintain it for a long time. I'll use 5gms of Kaolin in the first 12% bottle to settle organic impurities, but I am wondering if I can use the same solution for both Albumen and Salt paper sensitization. I have never tried Calotypes, but it doesn't look fundamentally different from albumen prints. Comments on this would be much appreciated.

Finally, any relatively cheap sources of Silver Nitrate that you can recommend? EBay has some sellers, but I don't have any experience with them. I would be looking to buy about a 100gms. I know more can be cheaper, but it's just too much money to tie up at the moment.

Thanks,
Anupam

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think I last bought mine from Artcraft, but also check mostlymetals.com. E-mail for the current price, because it changes daily. He tries to combine orders for different photographers and artists using precious metal salts and passes on the savings. I got a good deal on gold chloride from him a while back, but I haven't ordered any more since he moved out to the West Coast from Brooklyn.

 

[Anupam Basu]

Thanks, David.

Any thoughts on using the same stock solution for Albumen and Calotypes?

-A

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I haven't tried that, so I couldn't say.