Multigrade IV Peculiar Behaviour

During some darkroom work on Friday just gone I was making some test strips and test prints from a roll of film that had been laying around for about 8 months. There was nothing technically spectacular about the images, likely just a test roll that got lost. The paper however had different ideas...

The (half) sheet of paper used for a contact print came out fine. Next came a test sheet, and the entire thing came out with the entire emulsion side looking like pencil lead, a solid metallic silver that is extremely delicate and picks up finger prints and scratches really easily. So another test sheet was made, same paper, same batch as the last two sheets. It came out underexposed (operator error!) but with a peculiar pinking around the edge. Other pinholes and photograms have been made with the same paper, some with the pinking, some without. The pinking does wash off with a bit of persuasion but it leaves what appears to be improperly fixed paper underneath. Does anyone here (Simon? Photo Engineer?) have any thoughts on what the potential cause of this issue is?

Dev: Fresh mixed Multigrade Developer
Stop: Fresh Ilfostop
Fixer: Slightly used Hypam Fixer

Pictures coming, computer here has issues...

Sounds like exhausted fixer. Never reuse fixer for prints.

Chris' advice is on the safe side, but if you use a 2 fixer bath method (discussed and recommended repeatedly on this forum) and test monitor the first bath, you should be ok using fixer repeatedly, depending on print volume, of course.
Also, there's the issue of dumping more used fixer than you need to into the ecosystem.

If the file upload worked here is a sample of what I was talking about. That paper in the lower right isn't black but rather closer to the color of tarnished silver. All the same paper and the same chemicals for the same times. As you can see the contact print worked fine, but the pinhole and the (underexposed) test prints didn't. I should also note that on the pinhole it is only on 3 of the sides of the piece of paper. The test print on the top right is what happens when the pink residue is removed from the edges (leaving the paper look improperly fixed underneath. Apart from the silver sheet all of the paper seems stable enough.

If exhausted fixer is the problem then I fail to understand why the test strip was OK but the next print wasn't. Obviously fixer at some point exhausts but this seems very sudden. Most chemicals do not exhibit the cut-off kind of OK/then not OK syndrome.

pentaxuser

Dear Septin,

How old is the paper ?

Dead simple, take one full sheet and expose to white light for 30 seconds ( not a negative through an enlarger ) then one straight out the box put both in the dev for 90 seconds then into the fix, and fix for two minutes.

Obviously you should have one black sheet and one white sheet, if you do not or they exhibit similar markings to the above something is 'wrong' with the paper, most ( in fact nearly all ) incidences of paper 'faults' are post manufacture but as always we can check it out if you wish post doing your test.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology limited.

George Collier said:

Chris' advice is on the safe side, but if you use a 2 fixer bath method (discussed and recommended repeatedly on this forum) and test monitor the first bath, you should be ok using fixer repeatedly, depending on print volume, of course.
Also, there's the issue of dumping more used fixer than you need to into the ecosystem.

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absolutly!but it's trye that I only ever saw tthe pinkin unfixed paper and the DPpaper.

RalphLambrecht said:

absolutly!but it's trye that I only ever saw tthe pinkin unfixed paper and the DPpaper.

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Though from my experience using this paper I have found improperly fixed paper to be more purple then pink? Also, why would it only affect the edges (and on one piece, only three of the edges) not the entire sheet? With the sheet of paper that turned out with the emulsion looking like tarnished silver, I'm just not sure how the fixing could have done that? Anyway, I will be sure to do some tests and post the results.

septim

What's the source of your paper ? How old it is and how it was stored ? Looks like cooked.

OP you might want to research and tell us what you know about the age of the paper. This might be relevant to the problem. I agree it doesn't sound like a fixer issue unless your fixer is very old

Just as an experiment try some other fresh paper you may have and if not try the paper at the bottom of the pack to see if it makes any difference.

pentaxuser

Laying here in bed now and I feel I should add some closure to this thread. The issues with this paper appear to have been possibly related to some form of accidental chemical exposure (these were shared darkroom supplies). More paper from lower down in the box printed and processed fine, though I can't say the sample I have on hand is anywhere near a perfect print.

Nice to see a conclusion, OP. You'd be surprised how often someone will describe a problem, receive a 1000 pages of help and yet we hear no more about it.

pentaxuser

chriscrawfordphoto said:

Sounds like exhausted fixer. Never reuse fixer for prints.

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never reuse fixer period.