Mix your own... solutions for everything ??

[GreyWolf]

Over the past few years I have noticed quite a few "home brew" developer solutions coming onto the net. This is a wonderful expansion of our interests and has permitted many of us to branch out and enjoy photography to a much greater degree.

My question is ... Is there other "home brew" solutions that can be explored?

I am thinking of things such as "ferrotype solutions, print flattening mixtures, and equivalent to fixers like TF-4". I do realize that Steve Anchell has a couple of books out on this topic but am hoping to hear from APUGer's who have done their own experimentation and share their findings.

So ... can you offer up any home brews to keep us all busy during the Christmas holiday season?

Kind Regards,

GreyWolf

 

[Ole]

Anything can be mixed at home, with the possible exception of selenium and polysulfide toners. And those I would avoid just because the constituents are particularly nasty!

My OF-1 fixer is an alkaline "rapidised" fixer - easy to mix, cheap ingredients, less smelly than TF-4, and only marginally slower.

Anything else you'd like to see?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've certainly learned a lot by getting over the barrier of purchasing a scale and mixing my own. I have Anchell's _Darkroom Cookbook_ and just recently bought v. 1 of Grant Haist's _Modern Photographic Processing_, which is the source of many formulas in less technical manuals and more, and I've also picked up others from various spots on the net like unblinkingeye.com, apug of course, the B&W forums on photo.net, and http://www.jackspcs.com/

Formulas I use regularly are ABC pyro, PMK, and Michael Smith's amidol formulas for Azo and for enlarging papers.

I've been experimenting with variations on XR-1, which is a developer for push processing and a few other applications like night photography. The next one I want to try is RAF pyro-metol high energy film developer.

For me it doesn't really pay to mix my own fixer. I can buy TF-4 off the shelf at B&H for the same price as Formulary minus the shipping but plus the sales tax, and I've worked out that I wouldn't really save much by mixing TF-3.

 

[Nick Zentena]

You want my stout receipe?-)))

You can even mix colour chemicals if you want.

 

[GreyWolf]

Thanks folks.

For us folks outside of the U.S.A. the shipping cost of TF-4 as a liquid is prohibitive. For this reason mixing a suitable replacement would be a nice option.

I am also curious about ferrotypying FB prints ...print flattening solutions and the like. Do these things affect the final appearance of the prints?

In days gone by...was it just too much work to do print finishing like this?

Thanks

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

In days gone by, I think they did this stuff in such quantity that it was second nature. They went through Pakosol by the gallon and ferrotyped in quantity. A ferrotyped print has a really high gloss.

 

[rjr]

Greywolf,

"For us folks outside of the U.S.A. the shipping cost of TF-4 as a liquid is prohibitive. For this reason mixing a suitable replacement would be a nice option."

Any E6/C41-fixer will serve the purpose of rapid and neutral/alkaline odorless fixing as good or better than TF4 - at a much lower price.

I pay 6EUR/2l for the Calbe FX-R, which is good for 10l of fixing solution (the 5l jugs are even cheaper in comparison) - Calbe is Fuji-Hunt chemistry... Tetenal calls it "Unicolor Fix", Agfa labels their competetive product "FX Universal" and even states that you can use it for BW film and paper on the label.

Re ferrotyping -the extreme high gloss adds to the density and contrast, it doesn´t serve any image... sometimes it "glows". Why do people have so much trouble with ferrotyping their prints? The papers have changed. Thats it.

 

[Helen B]

'I am also curious about ferrotypying FB prints ...print flattening solutions and the like. Do these things affect the final appearance of the prints?

In days gone by...was it just too much work to do print finishing like this?'


"In days gone by," in many labs, prints were glazed (UK English for 'ferrotyped') by dropping the wet prints onto a glazing machine ('ferrotype dryer' in US English?) which was a highly polished chrome-plated, heated, metal drum with an endless fabric belt tightly held against it. It was very easy to do, but there was always the danger that someone had contaminated the belt with fixer from a poorly washed print. If you wanted your print glazed you put it onto the drum face in, if unglazed you put it on face out. I dried almost all my prints this way, and despite having used a communal darkroom, none of my prints have shown signs of staining after thirty years.

A lot of these machines were given away to anyone who had space for them when RC paper became popular.

At home I used to cold-glaze prints on the glass doors of my bookcases. The glass had to be well cleaned and scratch-free otherwise the prints would stick firmly to the glass. After squeegeeing onto the glass, they had to be held against the glass as they dried to prevent blemishes in the print surface as the dry parts of the print curled off the glass.

Best,
Helen

 

[Ian Grant]

You want my stout receipe?-)))

You can even mix colour chemicals if you want.

I do !

A few years ago I bought the entire remaining stock of specialist photographic chemicals from a laboratiory supply company. UK members might remember Hogg Laboratory Supplies being listed in the BJP annual, in the Formula section.

Ian

 

[Ole]

Ten minutes ago I picked an "AGFA Rezepte" 1951 book out of my mailbox. It contains recipes for just about every AGFA developer, stop, fix and toner ever published (except the then-new Agfacolor process).

Plenty to play with there...

 

[Daniel Grenier]

Ten minutes ago I picked an "AGFA Rezepte" 1951 book out of my mailbox. It contains recipes for just about every AGFA developer, stop, fix and toner ever published (except the then-new Agfacolor process).

Plenty to play with there...

Does it have the recipe for Neutol WA by any chance? If so, can you list it here please and thank you?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I don't think they had Neutol WA in 1951.

 

[Ole]

Does it have the recipe for Neutol WA by any chance? If so, can you list it here please and thank you?

Only if it also has a number...

But here is Agfa 105, a soft-working paper developer for neutral tone - lust as Neutol WA:

Metol.......................15g
Sodium sulfite............75g
Potassium carbonate...75g
Pot. bromide...............2g

Total 1 liter water, then dilute 1+4 to 1+5 for use.

 

[Nick Zentena]

I do !

Assuming you're asking for the stout.

With today's weather I guess the Imperial stout makes the most sense.

400 grams of Black patent
1kg carastan [it's a light munich]
1kg wheat malt
1kg wheat flakes
10.5 kgs of 2 row malt

Kettle additions

2kgs of light brown sugar [Not sure what you'd use in the UK for this. Treacle would be stronger in flavour and not ferment to the same extent. I'd go for a mix of cane sugar and molasses]

250 grams of Hallertua hops. You can swap in anything that'll give you a similar hop level.

It's a long boil. Figure 1.5 + hours depending on how much you sparge.

batch size ended up at 42 litres. SG 1.086 and FG 1.014 for the last batch I made. Obviously the ferment will take awhile. Use lots of fresh ale yeast. I normally make a batch of bitter first and when that gets racked off the yeast cake I make this beer up and pour it right onto the yeast cake. If you do that make sure you have LOTS of head room. It can be an explosive ferment. Think volcano.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Does it have the recipe for Neutol WA by any chance? If so, can you list it here please and thank you?

Daniel, there is a thread titled "All the same developer" in the APUG Chemistry Recipes.

The current version of Agfa Neutol WA is a Phenidone/Hydroquinone developer according to the most recent Agfa MSDS sheet. Neutol WA is reported to be very similar to Ilford ID-78. The recipe for ID-78 was posted by Ian Grant in the APUG Chemistry Recipes section.

From the Chemistry Recipes thread:

"Well, Dektol is a Metol/Hydroquinone developer.

Bromophen, Ilford Universal and Ilford Multigrade are all Phenidone/Hydroquinone developers with development characteristics that are similar to Dektol's.

Agfa Neutol WA is a warm toned Phenidone/Hydroquinone developer, it is most similar to Ilford ID 78.

The other version of Agfa Neutol is an ascorbic acid based developer - with very different characteristics from Agfa Neutol WA.

By argentic - 06:06 PM, 12-12-2004 Rating: None
Hi Tom,

I knew that warmtone Neutol isn't the same. But wWhat about Afga Neutol NE?
By Tom Hoskinson - 08:44 PM, 12-12-2004 Edit Rating: None
According to the current Agfa MSDS, the current version of Agfa Neutol NE contains the same chemicals that are listed for Agfa-120 (see the APUG Chemistry Section recipe), with the addition of EDTA, Tetrasodium salt (i.e. water softener).

The Neutral Tone of the NE version of Neutol is probably achieved by reducing/adjusting the amount of Potassium Bromide."