Question about acidic rapid fixers

[What About Bob]

I am looking for a listing of rapid fixers that would be on the acidic side and away from the scent of ammonia. I put in the search term for a listing of acidic rapid fixers and haven't come across any listings. When manually searching on Google for acidic fixers the first thing that comes up is Ilford Rapid Fixer and Hypam. Digging further, Kodak Rapid fixer. Would I be correct to assume that these fixers are of the acidic type?

I also was thinking of just ordering raw sodium thiosulfate but then I researched further into it and realized that because of extended iodide in emulsions that using the older thiosulfate may not be as effective as the ammonium versions would be for films and papers.

I will continue to use the fixer I have for developing film, just to use it up, but I will not be able to use it in open tray. Even with ventilation the ammonia fumes are intolerable. The older fixers I used to use didn't bother me at all.

 

[Anon Ymous]

When manually searching on Google for acidic fixers the first thing that comes up is Ilford Rapid Fixer and Hypam. Digging further, Kodak Rapid fixer. Would I be correct to assume that these fixers are of the acidic type?

Yes.

 

[What About Bob]

Thanks Anon Ymous.

 

[Anon Ymous]

Thanks Anon Ymous.

Oh, by the way, the Kodak fixer comes with a separate bottle of hardener if I recall correctly. Don't use it, it's not necessary with modern media and will slow washing down.

 

[john_s]

Look at the MSDS documents. They have varying degrees of detail but all list the pH.

 

[mshchem]

There's formulas for the old Kodak fixers. Ilford Rapid Fixer is a acidic Fixer, without hardener. Ilford publishes methods for quick and archival results. As said you don't need hardener in most cases.

 

[Paul Howell]

Clayton sold by Freestyle sells an odorless fix

Clayton Odorless Fixer - 1 Quart

Clayton Odorless Fixer - 1 Quart - Clayton Odorless Fixer is a clean working, heavy duty, rapid, non-hardening fixer. It is one of the fastest fixer for cleaning and drying times for all types of films and paper, one minute…

www.freestylephoto.com

 

[Richard Jepsen]

Try TF-5. It leans to alkaline and formulated to not have an odor. I had to move away from fixers on the acid side because of obnoxious odors.

People have different sensitivities.

 

[cmacd123]

the Ammonium ion seems to be the Key to making a "Rapid" fixer. The one formual for a powder rapid fixer I have seen is a formula that starts with "Hypo" and adds an Ammonium Compound.

our pals in Longview AB do have "Flic Allergen Free Fixer is an easy to use non-hardening fixer that is odorless and contains no ammonia or sulfur dioxide. Many people develop sensitivity to fixers after long term use. The culprits in this sensitivity have been identified as ammonia in rapid style fixers and sulfur dioxide in hypo style fixers. Flic Allergen Free Fixer contains no ammonia and has been formulated to not create sulfur dioxide when mixed. The use of Flic Low Odor Stop Bath is recommended to avoid the chances of a sulfur dioxide reaction that can occur with the use of acetic acid stop baths." I would guess that it is a "10 Minute" fixer.

you may be able to find it at whoever sells Flic's Products in your area. (and no I don't have any conection with Flic other than I seem to be spending a lot of money on their products in the past year. But I could not resist that Pentax 645Nii that their retail arm sold me in the fall)

 

[GregY]

TF 5 is a great fixer

 

[koraks]

Try TF-5.

TF 5 is a great fixer

That's what @What About Bob is using currently and he has an issue with the ammonia smell, so he prefers an old-fashioned acid fixer. See this post: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...s-for-rodinal-development.203441/post-2750038

I also was thinking of just ordering raw sodium thiosulfate

It's possible to make a quasi-rapid fixer with this...but frankly, why make things unnecessarily complicated? Ready-made fixer is fairly cheap, anyway. Virtually all big-brand fixer is acid, usually around pH4.0-4.5. To avoid the sulfur dioxide smell mentioned by @john_s here, a buffered stop bath might be used. I personally never bother, but then again, I don't mind most darkroom smells (hydrogen sulfide being the exception).

"Flic Allergen Free Fixer is an easy to use non-hardening fixer that is odorless and contains no ammonia or sulfur dioxide.

The sulfur dioxide problem is in my experience not so much caused by the fixer, but by sulfite carryover from the developer into the stop bath. This can be prevented by using a buffered stop bath that's set between pH4.0 and pH6.0 or so. This can be prepared by for instance mixing appropriate amounts of acetic acid and e.g. sodium carbonate, or citric acid and sodium carbonate (which will avoid the acetic acid smell).

I'm a bit puzzled by this sulfur dioxide-free fixer; fixer generally contains a hefty amount of sulfite to protect the thiosulfate from breaking down. At very low pH, this sulfite will partly convert to sulfur dioxide, but the pH at which this happens is lower than the typical pH of an acid fixer. That's why acid fixers generally work at pH4-4.5 or so!

But there's very little mystery at work here. The 'trick' of this Flic ' allergen free' fixer is that it's just plain old sodium thiosulfate. It's not a rapid fixer (that's how it avoids the ammonia as well) and it has no protection against sulfuring out of the thiosulfate, so it will be short-lived when mixed with water. Frankly, it's a great example of marketing buzzwords being used to sell a commodity chemical at a premium. This particular "Allergen Free Fixer" can be bought cheaply in a variety of package sizes in e.g. hardware stores (check the swimming) pool section.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Ilford Rapid Fix and Hypam are acidic rapid fixers. Hypam is formulated to be compatible with a hardener. Both work the same otherwise. I dilute them 1+9 for printing and they are quite close to neutral that way (no stains when transferring prints directly from fixer to selenium toner). No odor either. Many other manufacturers' rapid fixers are similar to these.

TF-5 is a nearly-neutral rapid fixer and, from what I understand, practically odorless. TF-4 can smell like ammonia a bit.

Best,

Doremus

 

[What About Bob]

@Anon Ymous: I noticed that Freestyle sells two bottles of just the Kodak rapid fixer without the hardener. Makes 40 liters.

@john_s - I have downloaded some of these sheets and will go over them.

@mshchem: I found some good Ilford docs. Very informative.

@Paul Howell: Cool. I will check that one out.

@Richard Jepsen - I am the exact opposite. I don't mind the smell of the acidic fixers.

@cmacd123: I never heard of this brand Before. I will go over this one.

@GregY: TF-5 does a great job at what it does. The Liquidol developer also by the Formulary is an awesome print developer.

@koraks: The big goal is to lessen the variables and I am working on doing this. Minimizing items while increasing upon the space. Being able to move around easily and have items within easy reach. Not have to deal with as many chemicals. The idea of making my own developers does tempt me but I know I need to stick with one film and print developer, one type of film and paper, to know their abilities and limitations.

@Doremus Scudder: Hypam is cheaper than their regular rapid fixer at B&H, by about $15 for the same 5 liter container? I might grab that.

I have been reading where others are not experiencing the ammonia issue; either not at all or not as much as I am and I will admit that I am sort of baffled by this. My graduates, tanks and trays are clean before doing any kind of work. I use distilled water for all of the chemical steps with the exception of the water wash after the fixer. I use distilled water also for the Photo-Flo. I use distilled water for the printing steps. I mix the TF-5 and in a short time I start noticing an odor of ammonia. When I add the fixer to the tray the fumes are there.

When I last developed the FP4+ film I noticed that the fixer had a tinge of purple in the solution after fixing. I'm taking it this could have been from the dye back? I would think most of that would have ended up in the developer? I didn't do any presoak since Ilford didn't recommend doing one.

Thanks everyone

 

[MattKing]

I noticed that Freestyle sells two bottles of just the Kodak rapid fixer without the hardener. Makes 40 liters.

That is at film strength. It makes 100 litres at paper strength.
How much printing are you planning to do!!!???
I buy the 1 litre size, and use the separate bottles of hardener with some of the toning processes I like to do - they have a tendency to soften the emulsion.

 

[What About Bob]

That is at film strength. It makes 100 litres at paper strength.
How much printing are you planning to do!!!???
I buy the 1 litre size, and use the separate bottles of hardener with some of the toning processes I like to do - they have a tendency to soften the emulsion.

40 liters for film or 100 liters for paper would be good as long as I could store the solutions correctly so that the solutions would last a decent time, yet at the same I really do not need as much right now. I would be happy with smaller amounts. I may just go with the Hypam for now.

I would like to be doing photography as much as I possibly can. I am back at the testing stage for the time being. Being careful because with what I currently have for film and paper, it has to count.

I am still looking around to see what other possible alternatives might be around for films and papers so that I can continue doing more photography. Seeing that film and paper are up more in cost I will soon need to make some compromises after the Ilford film and paper supplies are depleted just so that I can continue on with photography. If things go as planned then later on I can go back to using the brand named materials. It is of benefit that I do what ever testing is needed now so when returning to those materials I'll be all set.

There were plans on having a print display for March/April of 2020 but covid crushed that. In the the latter part of 2019 I was working to get back up to speed with things and connect with certain places in town for a display. There was one place that was all right with the idea and possibly another place. This is still the aim.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

It baffles me why Hypam is cheaper than Rapid Fixer sometimes. I always go for the cheaper one.

Doremus

 

[MattKing]

It baffles me why Hypam is cheaper than Rapid Fixer sometimes. I always go for the cheaper one.

Doremus

Perhaps because the Hypam is designed and marketed to be sold in the 5 litre or larger containers, to users who have the need for those quantities, while most of the market for Rapid Fixer is in the smaller bottles, preferred by low volume users.
If you buy a large container of the Rapid Fixer that is sold by a retailer who supports both large and small volume users, the costs are different than a commercial source for Hypam.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

I buy five-liter containers of both Rapid Fixer and Hypam. Sometimes one is cheaper than the other. No obvious reason why.