RA4 Blix

bottlegardener · Nov 6, 2017

Hi all,

I've just begun experimenting with home RA4 printing. I'm using a Chromega D; a SimmaColor 8x10 drum (hand agitation); and the Arista RA4 2L kit.

The process has been really interesting and enjoyable. But as a rank amateur who needs to make lots of test prints, I'm finding the Arista chemicals expensive.

Here in Canada, the more economical Kodak chemicals are very hard to come by, I just ordered a clearance (very last available?) Kodak Ektacolor RA 10L dev/replenisher bottle from Vistek. The problem is, I have no way to get the Kodak blix.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience making their own paper blix or bleaching and fixing in separate steps?
There's detailed instructions on this page: http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/c41_ra4_chemicals.htm
but I can't find a source for ferric ammonium EDTA.

Or could I maybe extend the life of my remaining Arista blix (~900ml) somehow?

Thanks for any advice!

Photo Engineer · Nov 6, 2017

You can make Sodium Ferric EDTA from Sodium EDTA + Ferric Chloride. As long as you have some excess EDTA present, and triple the blix time, this should work.

Ammonium Ferric EDTA is getting harder and harder to obtain. The Formulary used to carry it, but IDK if they do now. So, I'll try to work out an alternative.

PE

Wayne · Nov 6, 2017

I presume you've tried places like Adorama and Unique Photo? Will they just not ship it to canada?

bottlegardener · Nov 6, 2017

Photo Engineer said:
You can make Sodium Ferric EDTA from Sodium EDTA + Ferric Chloride. As long as you have some excess EDTA present, and triple the blix time, this should work.

Ammonium Ferric EDTA is getting harder and harder to obtain. The Formulary used to carry it, but IDK if they do now. So, I'll try to work out an alternative.

PE

Thanks! I'll look into these chemicals.

bottlegardener · Nov 6, 2017

Wayne said:
I presume you've tried places like Adorama and Unique Photo? Will they just not ship it to canada?

Yeah, sadly they will not ship to Canada.
I don't live too far from the US border and there's a forwarding business in upstate NY that will receive packages for a small fee. I wonder if I'd be permitted to drive the chemicals across the border or is that restricted as well? My Google searches haven't yielded much info. Any Canadians on here try this?

Wayne · Nov 6, 2017

bottlegardener said:
Yeah, sadly they will not ship to Canada.
I don't live too far from the US border and there's a forwarding business in upstate NY that will receive packages for a small fee. I wonder if I'd be permitted to drive the chemicals across the border or is that restricted as well? My Google searches haven't yielded much info. Any Canadians on here try this?

I would call your customs office and find out. I don't see why they wouldn't let you, but I also don't see why Vistek would carry developer and not blix...

Photo Engineer · Nov 6, 2017

bottlegardener said:
Thanks! I'll look into these chemicals.

Look at British patent 991,412 for some starting points.

PE

MattKing · Nov 6, 2017

bottlegardener said:
Yeah, sadly they will not ship to Canada.
I don't live too far from the US border and there's a forwarding business in upstate NY that will receive packages for a small fee. I wonder if I'd be permitted to drive the chemicals across the border or is that restricted as well? My Google searches haven't yielded much info. Any Canadians on here try this?

There is no reason to restrict imports of readily available photo chemicals so you should have no special problem bringing them in.
The reason that Unique Photo and others won't ship to Canada is that the chemicals require ground shipping, and the shippers don't provide customs clearance services as a part of their ground shipping offers.
When you talk to Canada Customs, you might want to ask what the applicable tariff code is.

Rudeofus · Nov 7, 2017

My impression is that the main difficulties in shipping Ammonium Ferric EDTA is not so much the great hazards it brings about (there aren't any AFAIK), but the fact that it is liquid. But you also need Ammonium Thiosulfate, which typically comes as 60% liquid concentrate, do you have a proper source for that? Yes, you can make Ammonium Ferric EDTA from Disodium EDTA, some strong mineral acid (typically Sulfuric Acid), Ferric Chloride and Ammonia solution, all of which can likely be sourced locally, but you can't reasonably make Ammonium Thiosulfate yourself. And: final pH of your BLIX needs to be 6.5 plus or minus a few after the comma, you won't be able to get there without a pH meter. Do you have one?

The easiest way to get an RA-4 BLIX would be to get a BLIX for C-41 and/or E-6 and dilute these 1:1 with water.

Wayne · Nov 7, 2017

Here's a crazy idea;have you asked Vistek if they can get it for you? I see a different Kodak bleach product on their site

bottlegardener · Nov 7, 2017

Thanks for the info everyone.
Vistek just cancelled my Kodak RA dev order, saying there was a warehouse inventory error and that the product was, in fact, no longer available to purchase online.
Now I guess I'll weigh the price difference between driving to the USA + getting the Kodak chemicals shipped to a forwarding company vs. ordering the Tetenal RA4 kit at Argentix.ca (an excellent Canadian mail-order operation).

MattKing · Nov 7, 2017

bottlegardener said:
Thanks for the info everyone.
Vistek just cancelled my Kodak RA dev order, saying there was a warehouse inventory error and that the product was, in fact, no longer available to purchase online.
Now I guess I'll weigh the price difference between driving to the USA + getting the Kodak chemicals shipped to a forwarding company vs. ordering the Tetenal RA4 kit at Argentix.ca (an excellent Canadian mail-order operation).

Is there any chance that Vistek doesn't offer online sales, but does offer special order (or otherwise) in store sales?

mshchem · Nov 7, 2017

I go to my friend's photo shop. He does a ton of RA4 printing. He has a really nice setup, Noritsu. He gets his blix in 10 L batches (2 apx. 1/2 US gallon concentrates ) I think he orders from a minilab supply place. He uses Fuji developer and a different brand Blix (maybe Champion? ) I get Blix from him for less than 30 USD for 10 L. I split it up into small bottles.

If you can find a minilab they might be able to help. I think most of the newer processors take the fuji cartridges. Unique photo in New Jersey sells less than case quantities, but there's the whole border thing.

We need to find a back road between Minnesota and Ontario we could smuggle it in.

I don't want to be messing around with the RCMP though!
Best Regards Mike

MattKing · Nov 7, 2017

You don't need to smuggle anything!
If it is manufactured in the US, Canada or Mexico, it should come in free of duties, thanks to NAFTA. Of course, that may not last forever .
You might have to pay GST/PST/HST, but there is at least a decent chance they will just waive that.
The one thing you need to be careful of is that if they think you are importing products for commercial purposes, you will have to complete commercial paperwork - yech!
A customs broker might be willing to give you some advice about the applicable tariff code - if they are feeling generous. Actually using their services would most likely be expensive.

Wayne · Nov 8, 2017

MattKing said:
You don't need to smuggle anything! .

And Montreal isn't in Ontario. Otherwise I'd offer to smuggle it into Ontario myself.

EdSawyer · Nov 8, 2017

Looks like Unique will ship it. I was able to add it to the cart, and was working on entering a new address, and Canada is one of the country pull down options. I didn't go the full way through the checkout, but it seemed like it was working:

https://www.uniquephoto.com/product...4-10-liters-1273812/_/searchString/EKY1273812

barzune · Nov 8, 2017

Try Argentix in Montreal
http://www.argentix.ca/C41E6chems.php?=SID&mqry=sp002

bottlegardener · Nov 9, 2017

Thanks again for the advice everyone.
I decided to order from Unique and get it shipped to a forwarding location near the border. This ended up being the cheapest option.
Unique did in fact offer USP ground shipping to Canada but it was $41.70 (the kodak dev and blix were about $29 in total). In addition, I would have had to pay a customs brokerage fee of $15 (or likely even higher if they dinged me for additional paperwork).
Argentix.ca is a great business (and incidentally they do stock Ammonium thiosulfate 60% and a lot of other bulk photo chemicals). I wrote them about this and they explained that the Kodak Alaris distributor has a very large minimum order. The owner also mentioned he's considering selling his own branded RA4 if the 5L Adox RA4 kit remains unavailable. Any Canadians who are interested might want to send him a message so he'll know there's demand. I used the Argentix.ca E-6 kit and I'm very happy with the results.

amateur_trombonist · Dec 8, 2017

If you want a Canadian supplier of RA-4 bleach/fix try the following supplier. I just received an order 2 days ago. I have ordered from this supplier a couple of times before and have been well satisfied.

Hi-Tech Group
4233 Rockwood Road,
Mississauga, Ontario
L4W 1L9

His phone number is 905-625-9261; email is fablenatural@gmail.com; online site is www.hitechemall.com

Hope this helps.

avb · Dec 13, 2017

Have you tried using a stop bath between the developer and blix steps? (maybe you are doing this already)
Using a high temperature process? (not RT?)
I currently use 250 mL of the Adox RA-4 2.5L to process about 24 8x10 prints.

Are you doing one-shot Arista RA-4? I just ordered some Arista RA-4 from argentix (out of Adox) and I plan to extend it much more than the one shot method.
Going by one shot, the Arista chemistry would only do 8x(16x20) or about 32(8x10). (maybe 33(8x10))
So that's $2 for RA-4 Chemistry per 8x10 print!

maybe I misread the Arista instructions...

halfaman · Dec 14, 2017

Minilab chemistry is much more cheaper than amateur one. Check if you can find any profesional supply in Canada and the range of products.

Tetenal for example sells the "start-up kits" of 9 litres of developer and blix separately to fill empty minilab tanks. They have a very interesting price and it is a reasonable quantity.

bottlegardener · Dec 14, 2017

avb said:
Have you tried using a stop bath between the developer and blix steps? (maybe you are doing this already)
Using a high temperature process? (not RT?)
I currently use 250 mL of the Adox RA-4 2.5L to process about 24 8x10 prints.

Are you doing one-shot Arista RA-4? I just ordered some Arista RA-4 from argentix (out of Adox) and I plan to extend it much more than the one shot method.
Going by one shot, the Arista chemistry would only do 8x(16x20) or about 32(8x10). (maybe 33(8x10))
So that's $2 for RA-4 Chemistry per 8x10 print!

maybe I misread the Arista instructions...

Yes I was using the Arista one-shot. Yeah that was the pretty much my math too, it's what led me to buy the Kodak chemicals. I'm an absolute beginner so I didn't experiment with using a stop bath or replenishing.

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