Question about using Pot. Ferri. and Hypo separately

[Roy Keane]

I've been trying to experiment with different ways of using Farmer's Reducer. Today I was playing with applying just the stock Ferricyanide part of Farmer's Reducer to a print with a q-tip, then rinsing and placing in a fixer bath.

However, when I applied the stock Ferri, without any further dilution to the paper, the bleaching started immediately.

Is this an indication that I have not adequately washed the fixer from the print? I was expecting nothing to happen until I put the print back into the fixer.

 

[MattKing]

The fixer in Farmer's Reducer doesn't bleach, it removes the bleached and re-halogenated material, before it can be re-developed.
Your stock ferricyanide converted the image back into a silver halide which was then ready to be re-exposed and redeveloped again.

 

[Ian Grant]

The bleach will work fast on it's own unlesss quite dilute, there's no Halide in Farmers reducer Matt so it's Silver Ferricyande complexes. I prefer to bleach with a dilute re-halogenating bleach this was something I did a lot when using various toners for hand colouringprints.

Ian

 

[Roy Keane]

ahhh...yeah, it was definitely not dilute

 

[NedL]

I'm not sure how strong "stock Ferri' is, but potassium ferricyanide by itself will form silver/ferricyanide complexes and some of these are even soluble in water ( and even the ones that are not soluble will not be black like silver ) I suspect what you are trying to do will work better with very weak pot ferri, but I don't think what you are seeing is an indication of residual fixer. Good luck!

Edit: I see Ian already answered!

 

[MattKing]

The bleach will work fast on it's own unlesss quite dilute, there's no Halide in Farmers reducer Matt so it's Silver Ferricyande complexes. I prefer to bleach with a dilute re-halogenating bleach this was something I did a lot when using various toners for hand colouringprints.

Ian

Oops, Ian is correct.
I always work with re-halogenating bleach instead of Farmers, and forgot!