Making collodion from ping-pong balls

fdonadio · Aug 17, 2016

Hello, everyone!

I am trying to help a friend get into wet plate — and getting into it along with him, waaaaaaay before I planned — but it's been a nightmare. We're trying to source all the chemistry and regulations are keeping us from getting everything we need.

First, we tried tto find collodion "off-the-shelf", but all we could find is the "flexible" one. Then, I read every document about wet plate collodion and got confident that I could make gun-cotton myself and dilute it with ethyl ether... but regulations keep me from buying Nitric Acid. I got everything else, including ethyl ether, so... go figure!

Finally, last weekend, I came across these ping-pong — or table tennis — balls at a sports store. The package label had a warning: "keep away from fire or excessive heat". It reminded me that these balls are made out of nitrocellulose!

So, I ask: has anyone tried diluting ping-pong balls with ethyl ether to make collodion? I am afraid there are additional components — like white dye, for example — that would make it unsuitable for photographic collodion... But asking wouldn't hurt, right?

Google didn't turn out a thing...

Cheers,
Flavio

Gerald C Koch · Aug 17, 2016

There is a problem that the nitrocellulose used for the Ping-Pong balls contains a pigment to make them white. Pure nitrocellulose should be transparent. The pigment would interfere with light transmission.

removed account4 · Aug 17, 2016

hey flavio

have you gone to the collodion website, http://www.collodion.com and asked where you might
find the materials you need ? there might be someone near you, or at least in south america
who had to deal with the same issues and found a way to get what was needed. quinn jacobson might be worth contacting as well
he gives wet plate workshops in a lot of places, he might be of help figuring out a solution to your problem.

best of luck !
john

fdonadio · Aug 17, 2016

jnanian said:
there might be someone near you, or at least in south america who had to deal with the same issues and found a way to get what was needed.

For sure, John... In fact this friend of mine will be participating in a workshop by one of the guys that seem to be the only ones making wet plates in Brazil, currently. Someone even posted a link to their website here at APUG, a couple of months ago or so.

It's a paid (and relatively expensive) workshop, as there's not much of a community of "analog" photographers here in Brazil. At least, not that I know of... Maybe I'm wrong — and that's not very unusual — but my experience is that Brazilians don't share as much as Americans or Europeans. At least, not in the subjects that I am into: photography and software development. /rant

Back to the subject, these guys are making their own collodion from scratch. Somehow, they got some Nitric Acid, but they won't say it on their website. I am going to email them and ask. It won't hurt either.

Cheers,
Flavio

fdonadio · Aug 17, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
There is a problem that the nitrocellulose used for the Ping-Pong balls contains a pigment to make them white. Pure nitrocellulose should be transparent. The pigment would interfere with light transmission.

Thanks a lot, Gerald! That's exactly what I thought...

Cheers,
Flavio

RSalles · Aug 17, 2016

Flavio,

There is a bunch o nitric acid averaging from PA 53 to 70% at the local evilbay, aka Mercado Livre. Does it fit your needs?

Cheers,

Renato

sfaber17 · Aug 17, 2016

fdonadio said:
.. but regulations keep me from buying Nitric Acid. I got everything else, including ethyl ether, so... go figure!

You could make it yourself from sulfuric acid and sodium/potassium nitrate, but it is better to just mix the potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid and use that to nitrate the cotton. You need 100% (or close) sulfuric. You make a thick slush and keep it ice cold. It is even possible to pass air through a tube with a silent high voltage discharge and make nitric acid.

fdonadio · Aug 18, 2016

RSalles said:
There is a bunch o nitric acid averaging from PA 53 to 70% at the local evilbay, aka Mercado Livre. Does it fit your needs?

Yes, for sure! I ended up buying from a vendor there this morning... They ask no questions, but charge four times what I would pay to Sigma-Aldrich for the same quantity. That's one of the prices you pay for going outlaw! I think I should get this now: http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Zenit_Photosniper .

Well... Now I got everything I need. Unless the cotton balls sold at the drugstore are not made of pure cellulose!

Cheers.
Flavio

fdonadio · Aug 18, 2016

sfaber17 said:
You could make it yourself from sulfuric acid and sodium/potassium nitrate, but it is better to just mix the potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid and use that to nitrate the cotton. You need 100% (or close) sulfuric.

That's a very good idea! From what I gather from the regulations, I could buy tons of nitrates without any special authorization. I have 95% Sulphuric Acid, which they call "technical grade". Will that do?

Cheers,
Flavio

sfaber17 · Aug 18, 2016

You might be able to look it up in Henley's 20th century book of formulas. I think it is online as an old copyright expired book. It might work with 95% acid. I made it this way when I was a kid and it did get nitrated pretty well. Never got it to explode but it burned pretty fast. I would dry the nitrate and grind it up pretty fine. Take a beaker with some acid maybe 200ml or so in a 500ml or larger beaker. Put that in a larger bowl of ice slush as a cooling bath. Make sure you don't get any water in the acid. Then add the nitrate powder slowly and stir well until you get a thick slush of nitrate/acid. Then assuming it is still cold, add some cotton. You will have to play with the amounts. Leave it for, I'm not sure, maybe 15 to 30 min. Then take out the cotton and wash it very well to get out all the acid. Then try dissolve it in an alcohol/ether mix. You can test the level of nitration by burning some when dry before you dissolve it.

fdonadio · Aug 18, 2016

sfaber17,

Thanks a lot for the tips.

For future reference, here's the link to Henley's book: https://archive.org/details/henleystwentieth00hiscrich

Cheers,
Flavio

sfaber17 · Aug 23, 2016

I found the formula: mix 127 g potassium nitrate with 110 ml conc sulphuric acid sp. gr. 1.845. Cool to room temperature. Carefully stir in 7.77g clean white cotton. Leave for just over a minute. Pour everything slowly into a large bowl of water. Rinse under running water until no trace of acid. Dry, then dissolve in ether and ethyl alcohol mixture. (You might want an ice bath handy.)

Gerald C Koch · Aug 23, 2016

sfaber17 said:
You could make it yourself from sulfuric acid and sodium/potassium nitrate, but it is better to just mix the potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid and use that to nitrate the cotton. You need 100% (or close) sulfuric. You make a thick slush and keep it ice cold. It is even possible to pass air through a tube with a silent high voltage discharge and make nitric acid.

Please take the advice of someone trained as a chemist. Do not, I repeat DO NOT attempt to make nitrocellulose. Nitrations can be difficult to control and can be very dangerous. The nitration needs to be stopped before you get to the gun cotton stage. Knowing when to do this requires some experience. Just reading about the process is not a substitute for actual lab experience handling dangerous chemicals like concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. Then there is the nitration itself which is exothermic and can quickly become explosive. It would be better to find a supplier of collodion.

falotico · Aug 23, 2016

Gerald Koch is right! A person should always try to avoid handling anything explosive. Avoid dangerous chemical reactions unless you are working under the guidance of an experienced chemist.

fdonadio · Aug 23, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
It would be better to find a supplier of collodion.

falotico said:
A person should always try to avoid handling anything explosive.

Gerald, I agree with you, but there's the problem: there are no suppliers of collodion that we can find in Brazil. People that shoot collodion here are making their own from scratch — that's the information I got from one of them.

Importing collodion would be impossible, as it's a no-fly substance. Importing by sea freight is impractical for small quantities.

And, finally, there's the "regulations" part. And, it seems, Brazilian government agrees with you, falotico!

I am not a chemist. I studied Industrial Chemistry in high school, but didn't finish the course. I am more than comfortable with lab gear and procedures, though, as I spent a lot of time in the labs back then, helping the lab assistant in preparing solutions, stuff like that.

I know some basic things, like "never ever add water to a concentrated acid; add the acid to water, slowly" and some other not-so-basic stuff. I always use proper protective gear, including a mask with filters for acid gases and vapors when I deal with these concentrated chemicals.

My home darkroom was set up like a small lab and I have proper ventilation (based on documents available on ASHRAE's website, for example). I might consider getting a CO2 extinguisher...

Last, but not least, guncotton is not exactly explosive, unless "wrapped" or put inside an involucre of some sort. At most, it's extremely flammable. If precautions are taken, it's pretty much safe. I would say it's safer than the gunpowder inside firecrackers. And these can be had in Brazil easily!

Cheers,
Flavio

removed account4 · Aug 23, 2016

hi flavio

why don't you contact quinn and ask him if there is someone local to you
and maybe that person can supply you with collodion that is pre-made rather
than you doing it yourself. if there are people in brazil doing WP, they most likely
have a source of collodion, unless they are making it themselves, and if that is the case
maybe they would not mind being YOUR source for collodion ... i know brazil is extremely large
but maybe you can get lucky and find someone close by ?

fdonadio · Aug 23, 2016

jnanian said:
maybe they would not mind being YOUR source for collodion ...

I didn't think about this. At least, not in this way.

In fact, my friend participated in a Pt/Pd printing workshop organized by these guys from imagineiro.com.br, who are the only guys shooting collodion in Brazil that we know of. We googled a lot for information in Portuguese and there's almost nothing to be found.

My friend didn't say anything about these guys offering their collodion for sale. Maybe he didn't ask them. He's still interested in making our own.

Cheers,
Flavio

sfaber17 · Aug 25, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Nitrations can be difficult to control and can be very dangerous.

In any case if you do go forward, I should probably mention along those lines that you shouldn't always trust a formula like I posted which probably was ordered from the back of popular mechanics in the 60s. The first description is from memory when I made it in high school and after I did more research into it. If I recall you do have to keep the temperature down and regulated, hence my ice bath. I monitored the temperature and was ready to dump all contents in the ice bath if things seemed to get out of control, which never happened. If you scale up the quantities, things become more difficult to control. Using the nitrate salts method make things less likely to go wrong also I believe.
Not sure about the dissolving part and making collodion. I never did that.

fdonadio · Aug 25, 2016

@sfaber17 , I am studying more to get things right from the start. I feel it's not beyond my skills at all.

Thanks to everyone for the input, even to the ones that are trying to dissuade me of making collodion.

I got everything I need and the nitric acid is now stored in a locked cabinet in my lab, along with some other acids.

Cheers,
Flavio

Making collodion from ping-pong balls

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