Mixing Palladium Sol. 3

eggshell · Dec 17, 2005

Hello all,

I am soon planning on mixing my own Palladium Sol. 3. Since it would be an expensive lesson if I mess it up, please help me with these questions:-

1. Where can I get the best price for Palladium Chloride?
2. Since 50ml sol. 3 is a relatively small amount to mix, is there a cause for concern on the accurate measurements of the chemicals & water?
3. Does the Palladium Chloride I buy come in a little brown dropper bottle?
4. Can I use common table salt for sodium chloride?
5. Is the water temperature critical during mixing and does the mixtures dissolve easily?

Once again, thanks for the help.

clay · Dec 17, 2005

1. Englehard in S.C.
2. Just be careful. I'd be surprised if Englehard will want to sell it in a quantity less than 25-50g, which will make 300-600ml.
3. It is a reddish brown powder with the consistency of corn starch
4. No. Use un-iodized salt.
5. Hot distilled water (120 deg F.) will help it dissolve readily. It usually takes 30-60 minutes for me to get it in solution.

Jorge · Dec 17, 2005

Clay answered all, for the salt go to the supermarket and buy "canning and pickling" salt, which is just plain salt with no additives. A box will last you a lifetime, I still have the one I bought in the US 5 years ago.

photomc · Dec 17, 2005

This is good information, have been considering mixing my own as well. The question that I have, is what quantity should you be mixing before it is really a cost reduction vs say B&S? From what I have seen, the 100ml bottle of LiPd is priced about right for the quantity of metal involved. Also, curious how much metal do you guys use in a set period of time (say per year)?

TIA

Ray Bidegain · Dec 17, 2005

I think Clay has answered this well. My experience is that you need to buy about 250 grams before the price gets to be a big savings. In the past I have been able to write to other printers and get a group together to make a larger buy, with out too much trouble. . I usually mix up 100 grams at a time and it makes around 1100 ml of #3.

Ray Bidegain

Shinnya · Dec 17, 2005

Price of P.C.

Hi,

I am just worndering how much it would be per gram if I order 50 g from Englehard? Would it be it less than $10/g?

Also, is anyone out there who would be interested in combining the order from them? I would be interested in doing with some poeple.

Warmly,
Tsuyoshi

Ray Bidegain · Dec 17, 2005

I can not remember exactly but it seems like the last time I bought 250 grams it was around $ 6.50-7.00 per gram. I do not think Englehard will do 50 grams.

Ray

Shinnya · Dec 17, 2005

Ray,

Thank you very much for your information.

So, all I need is four more people who want to buy 50g of P. C. That would be $350/person or so. Let me know if anyone is interested.

Warmly,
Tsuyoshi

clay · Dec 17, 2005

If there is interest in a group purchase, it might make sense if to poll APug for any interest. The last time I did this two years ago, it was about $6.50/g. I think it has gone up quite a bit lately and is probably closer to $8-9/g. To get any reasonable savings, a purchase group would need to buy about 500g at least, if not a whole 1000g.

Ray Bidegain said:
I can not remember exactly but it seems like the last time I bought 250 grams it was around $ 6.50-7.00 per gram. I do not think Englehard will do 50 grams.

Ray

Shinnya · Dec 17, 2005

So, that means 9 more people who want to buy 50g. It will be $400/person or so. I would be still interested in a group purchase. PM me if anyone is interested.

Warmly,
Tsuyoshi

clay said:
If there is interest in a group purchase, it might make sense if to poll APug for any interest. The last time I did this two years ago, it was about $6.50/g. I think it has gone up quite a bit lately and is probably closer to $8-9/g. To get any reasonable savings, a purchase group would need to buy about 500g at least, if not a whole 1000g.

Photo Engineer · Dec 17, 2005

All food grade salt (Sodium Chloride or NaCl) contains anti-caking agents which affect the imaging propreties with silver emulsions.

I have no idea what they will do for other types of photoprocesses, but I wanted to let you know that there is an extraneous ingredient in food salt, and it does affect emulsion making FYI, FWIW.

PE

Jorge · Dec 17, 2005

Photo Engineer said:
All food grade salt (Sodium Chloride or NaCl) contains anti-caking agents which affect the imaging propreties with silver emulsions.

I have no idea what they will do for other types of photoprocesses, but I wanted to let you know that there is an extraneous ingredient in food salt, and it does affect emulsion making FYI, FWIW.

PE

Not pickling and canning salt, it is just rock salt. They dont add anything precisely so that there are not any sediments left after the pickling or canning process.

Ray Bidegain · Dec 17, 2005

I would be interested in contacting them to get a price and organizing a group buy if there are some interested parties.

Ray Bidegain

donbga · Dec 17, 2005

Ray Bidegain said:
I would be interested in contacting them to get a price and organizing a group buy if there are some interested parties.

Ray Bidegain

Ray,

I'm definitely interested!

Don Bryant

photomc · Dec 17, 2005

I would be interested as well, even if a few of us ended up splitting afterwords. Noticed a big differnece in how much I used going from 4x5 to 5x7 and really noticed it with 8x10. Can see why this works well for the folks that print BIG .

Jim Moore · Dec 17, 2005

Ray Bidegain said:
I would be interested in contacting them to get a price and organizing a group buy if there are some interested parties.

Ray Bidegain

Count me in too..

Thanks,
Jim

Ray Bidegain · Dec 17, 2005

In the past I have contacted my sales rep and arranged for the price. I then collect from all the interested parties. When I make the order I have them package the material in sperate packages for each buyer that way there is no chance for contamination. Once the packages arrive I send them out the participants. It has worked well in the past and I have some others who are interested as well. I will post more on Monday.

Ray Bidegain

Photo Engineer · Dec 17, 2005

Jorge said:
Not pickling and canning salt, it is just rock salt. They dont add anything precisely so that there are not any sediments left after the pickling or canning process.

Jorge, pickeling and canning salt may be called 'rock salt' but it has gone through several refinements before certificatation as 'food grade'. There is also "brining salt" which is either for brining meats (like corned beef) and fish (sallted cod). I believe that this brining salt may represent another level of purity depending on whether it is used for butchered meats or whole fish. Rock salt itself is the first crop of crystals from brines and as such it is black dirty stuff. It is more like what they use for street salting around here. (Although even that has a lot of additives.) It is not what I associate with food.

Rock salt comes in varying degrees of purity but has one thing in common. It comes as large mainly cubic crystals of NaCl. I would therefore not suggest that anyone blindly buy salt with the label "rock salt" on it.

Any of these salts below 'reagent grade' or 'analytical grade' contain enough extraneous material that there may be an effect on photographic properties. The generic rock salts fall into this category.

I have tested this out to my satisfaction with AgX. I really don't know about Pt/Pd and other imaging systems, but at the cost of precious metals, it would be best to use the best halide rather than chance the loss of some Pt or Pd. Don't you think so?

Anyhow, you use what you wish. I'm just trying to put out some precautionary notes which some people may or may not find important or interesting.

PE

Jorge · Dec 17, 2005

Hmmmm....so I guess Morton salt is lying when they print in the box "Salt, nothing added"...huh?

Photo Engineer · Dec 17, 2005

Jorge, I cant answer that. There are regulations that say that if an ingredient is harmless and is below a certain level, it does not need to be mentioned. Also, if they didn't add anything, if something was already there, then there is no problem.

But to add to this, all I can say is that salt cakes badly unless silicates and other ingredients such as rice powder (starch) are added. I remember as a child during WWII, this was not done and we had to keep breaking the salt up in our salt shakers to keep it pouring. In fact, the Morton label went to the little girl with umbrella when they started putting in the additives. They used to advertize that Morton salt would pour in a rainstorm. Their motto was "when it rains, it pours".

So, maybe it is not a lie, but rather a loophole? IDK.

I have analytical grade NaCl here. It is one big lump in the bottle and sitting next to it is a container of Morton salt (non-iodized) and it is just like fresh sea sand and says "nothing added". I get different results from 3 batches of salt. Rock salt, food salt (nothing added) and reagent grade.

PE

Jorge · Dec 17, 2005

Well, all I know is that the salt I use with nothing added works great. After 4 years of using it without problems I am pretty confident it has nothing else but salt in the box.....

Photo Engineer · Dec 17, 2005

Jorge said:
Well, all I know is that the salt I use with nothing added works great. After 4 years of using it without problems I am pretty confident it has nothing else but salt in the box.....

Frankly Jorge, that is my motto as well.

If it works, use it.

PE

Kerik · Dec 17, 2005

I've used both regular table salt and non-iodized salt for making sodium palladium chloride. They both work just fine.

scootermm · Dec 17, 2005

Id be VERY interested in going in on a group order.

eggshell · Dec 17, 2005

Thanks to all. I'm definately interested in a group purchase.

Mixing Palladium Sol. 3

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Shinnya

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Mixing Palladium Sol. 3

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