Questions about non ammonia fixer for print paper

After 12 years of darkroom work I have developed an allergy to ammonia. I have cleaned all the past residue and am looking for the best way to work with non ammonia fixers.

Here is what I am doing. Are there any suggestions to improve either the chemical mix or the process?

Ole Tjugen suggested this mix. 240 g Sodium thiosulfate, 15 g Sodium sulfite, 3 g Sodium bisulfite mix with 1 ltr water. I mixed 7 ltr split between two 16x20” stainless trays. The print paper is Kentmere Fineprint fbvc cut 8x18” for 7x17” contact prints. Each print stays five minutes in each fixer tray. Prior to the fix the paper has been three minutes in Ilford multigrade developer mixed 1:9. The stop bath is 1 minute of .75 oz Ilfostop in 2 ltr water. After a brief tray water wash the prints go into a 16x20” vertical washer using a slow trickle flow of well water for about two hours.

Have I left out any information that would help you understand? Would any change or addition to the chemical mix improve things? Do I need to fix five minutes in each tray? Any suggestions considered and appreciated

Thank you for your ideas.

John Powers

Plain old Kodak fixer was always the best way to go.

Is Kodak fixer a one use item or can it last in sealed bottles for several uses in future sessions?
Do you establish whether it is usable next time with Hypo Chk as you would an ammonia fixer?

Thanks for your help.

John

The powdered, Kodak fixer is a hardening fixer, so if you are trying to conserve wash water or do a lot of toning, it may not be ideal for you.

Does your allergy prevent use of Hypo Clearing agent? If not, you may wish to consider mixing up some of that to shorten the wash times.

Ole's home brew formula is a good one. It has near neutral pH and is non-hardening, which makes for more consistent toning. Hardening isn't really necessary for properly handled papers anyway. I might use a minute less in each bath, with agitation, but otherwise your plan looks good. Kodak fixer works just fine and may be more convenient. It is an acid hardening fixer, generally similar to F-5.

Hi

Sorry about your medical problems.

Your work flow is excellent cept for Matt's comment...

MattKing said:

Does your allergy prevent use of Hypo Clearing agent? If not, you may wish to consider mixing up some of that to shorten the wash times.

Click to expand...

Hypo clear is just sodium sulphite and metabisulphite, shortens wash times.
..., 2nd Fix, 2-3 mins rinse, wash aid 2 mins, long rinse in running

Thank you for the concerns about my allergies. I feel that one month before my 74th birthday I am fortunate to have a medical problem so easily controlled. Thank you for all these helpful answers. These help keep me in the darkroom.

Currently we are having flood warnings every time it rains or the snow melts. Running the trickle wash has not been a concern. Certainly if this changes I can add hypo clear to the work flow.

I have not toned. The toner I would like to use, selenium, is ammonia based.

How do I test whether the fix can be reused another day or two?
Is Hypo Chk the correct product or can you recommend a better test?

John

Michael R 1974 said:

For fixing prints there is nothing wrong with using a regular sodium thiosulfate fix. It just requires longer fixing times.

Click to expand...

This is good advice and you can reuse it many times.

jp80874 said:

How do I test whether the fix can be reused another day or two?
Is Hypo Chk the correct product or can you recommend a better test?

John

Click to expand...

I found the answer to this question. Hypo Chek can be used to test all fixers for silver exhaustion according to it's label.

John

jp80874 said:

I have not toned. The toner I would like to use, selenium, is ammonia based.

Click to expand...

Understood. Why consider a process where you can't bear the fumes.

Based on a recent thread... The best way (my impression of the way things were going) to determine fixer capacity is by counting the prints (and their size) which have gone through it. A two-bath fix greatly improves the life expectancy of the fixer.

I've re-used Kodak powdered fixer in the past and kept track of how much I used it by counting rubberbands. I used Tetanal test strips (that Ralph Lambrecht mentioned), and would retire the fix when it exceeded 3 g/l Ag according to the strips.

If you read any of my recent stories though, I've been wasting Kodak Rapid Fixer because of a problem I just figured out. Now I'll be going back and might keep the fix longer. Maybe I'll start using rubberbands again.

Bill, regarding paper processing, in either a single, or the two-bath regime, the recommended max silver level is 2 g, and not as much as 3 g, per litre of working solution, for the first, or for the only bath. In the two-bath regime, the second should not exceed 0.5 g/l. In a single-bath, 0.5 g/l would also be the archival processing limit, unless you applied the Ilford recommendation of following-up a short fix in film-strength rapid (ammonium thiosulfate) fix with a hypo clearing agent bath, in which case you could use the higher limit of 2 g—as we have been discussing in your toning, and a few other threads, recently.

In any approach, one should not keep the diluted, bottled fixer for more than a month (some say even a week), due to the risk of sulfuring, especially for more acidic ones. Sulfuring can be noticed as a yellowish precipitate of sulfur particles in the bottle of fixer, but this process starts before it becomes visible. Elemental sulfur in the emulsion would be damaging to it, even though the fixer solution would continue to work, technically, for two years, according to what I have observed, while stored this way. Emulsion damage, however, would not show for a few years later on, affecting film somewhat more than paper, due to the enlarging of the damage.

For John, a non-rapid, therefore containing no ammonia, two-bath regime would be more appropriate, I think.

Stroger, more purpose-designed ventilation, and gloves, would help, too.

the hypo check product is afaik bsed on iodide.this test is not very sensitive but can be usedto test for total exhaustion(>2g/l) if this test shows exhaustion,the fixer is really done.for a more sensitive test. I recommendsilver test strips from Tetenal.they can differenciate between 0.5 and 1 g/l, which is sensitive enough to check if the 2nd fix in a two-bath fixing method should be renewd.but, it is more expensiveand a bit hard to find

Bill, Rafal and Raph,

Thank you. Your information is very informative and helpful. I had not heard of Tetenal Fixing Bath Test Kit. After a bit of searching I found the product at Freestyle. Yes it is expensive.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/101243-Tetenal-Fixing-Bath-Test-Kit-100-Strips
Tetenal Fixing Bath Test Kit - 100 Strips $79.99

I was surprised that such an important test was not available at such a huge distributor as B&H Photo in New York, which has been my main source for years. This made me wonder if there were other ways of solving the problem.

I continued to search and discovered this product at Photographer’s Formulary.
FT-1 FIXER TEST $9.95
http://stores.photoformulary.com/ft-1-fixer-test/

Tech Information
https://store-59x7hd.mybigcommerce.com/content/03-0180.pdf

In reading through the tech information I felt that they were not as specific as Tetanol about the levels of fixer failure. I wonder if you three or others have experience with this far less expensive product or some similar substitute?

John P.

Rafal Lukawiecki said:

For John,
Stroger, more purpose-designed ventilation, and gloves, would help, too.

Click to expand...

Rafal,
Thank you for this suggestion. I had not mentioned that my basement darkroom is 11x13 feet with a 7 foot ceiling. The outer wall has two Panasonic Whisper fans in the rafters exhausting outside. Four inch PVC pipes come down from the fan intake to tray level on the wall side top of an 8 foot stainless sink. This is the opposite side from me. On the wall behind me is a 7 inch filtered intake fan. When I am at the sink, filtered air comes in behind me, passes around me, crosses the trays and is exhausted from the far side of the sink. I wear Nitrile disposable gloves and a 3M 6006 NIOSH chemical filter mask sold by Bostick & Sullivan.

John P