Real Agfa formulae:-)

Finally found a 1951 book of real Agfa Formulae etc, none of your ersatz right wing US propped up West German Agfa rubbish



Will go nicely with my Windisch - "The new Photo School" 1938 in English & "Die neue Fotoschule", 1941, in German

The Agfa book is nice because I use a similar vintage Carl Zeiss Jena 150mm f4.5 Tessar, an odd rare but excellent & exceptionally well coated LF lens that was probably made for Linhof. But 1951/52 was the vpoint where the Communists pulled Zeiss Jena & Agfa Wolfen away from possibly re-uniting with their new West Geraman off-sring and heralded the start of the cold war.

Ian

 

JPD is right I don't think the formulae for RO9 (Rodinal) has ever been published by Agfa or Orwo, but the pre-WWII/Wartime formula was published in the F.I.A.T. Report (Allied Intelligence reports on German Industries, compiled at the end of the War) and by Glafkides, and I have it somewhere.

The formulae for R08 (Glycin based) and R10 a p-Aminophenol 2 part developer have been published.

There's a lot of Formulae I'll be posting on APUG over the next few months. I'm always on the search for more books of Formulae to verify the 500+ that I already have in my database, and there's at least another 250, more likely over 300 yet to add. I should add taht I haven't checked the DCB or FDC, or Photo-Lab Index at this stage for additional formulae.

Ian

 

For Rodinal fans:

In 1910 the Agfa handbook of Formulae etc says:

In connection with the use of "Agfa Rodinal" the following remarks should be carefully noted:

In addition to neutrai sulphite and water "Agfa Rodinal" contains only an alkaline salt of Paramidophenol, but no excess of caustic alkali.


The method of manufacturing the developing agent was Patented so it was no secret.

LP Clerc gives a formula for making Rodinal in his 1938 book where an alkaline salt of p-Aminohenol is made, precipitated & filtered it's the re-dissolved in the minimum amount of NaOH it takes to dissolve it and Sulphite added. On an industrial scale that was how Rodinal once used to be made. Of course we don't know how Agfa adapted the formula over the years but the biggest changes were made when Agfa (West Germany) re-formulated the product and probably changed the original manufacturing process and raw chemistry.

My copy of Clerc is in the UK or I'd post the formula.

Alternative formulae use p-Aminophenol hydrochloride or in Kodak's case the oxalate, Kodak sold both the hydrochloride form & the oxalate as Kodelon.

Rodinal equivalents were made by Ilford "Certinal", May & Baker and other large photo chemistry manufacturers.

Ian

 

Only bought the book last night John, I won't get it for a while as it'll go to my UK address, and I've no idea when I'll actually get to see the books unless I can persuade someone to bring them over to Turkey.

I do have most of the Agfa formulae already including Agfa 130, but I've not been able to cross check it as of yet. Agfa 130 is one of the handful of developers that is quite different in formulae & type between Agfa-Ansco in the US and Agfa/Orwo in Gernany:

AGFA / ORWO 130

Metol 2.5 g
Sodium Sulphite (anhyd) 30 g
Hydroquinone 7 g
Sodium Carbonate (anhyd) 30 g
Potassium Bromide 1 g

Water to make 1 litre


AGFA -ANSCO 130

Metol 2.5 g
Sodium Sulphite (anhyd) 30 g
Hydroquinone 11 g
Sodium Carbonate (anhyd) 67.5 g
Potassium Bromide 5.5 g
Glycin 11.0 g
Water to make 1 litre

For use dilute 1+1. Development times 2 - 6 min.

hope that helps

ian

 

Rodinal originally wasn't made from the free base & involved precipitating the free base first than re-dissolving it.

At one point Agfa were owned by IG Farben and the formulae probably changed when p-Aminophenol (free base) became commercially vailable.

Yes I could put a formula online that would be very close to the RO9, pre-WWII version that's still made by Calbe but it's not the same as modern Rodina;.

There are at least 5 ingredients in Rodinal not 3 and we have no idea what the 5th, the anti-foggant is, or how sighnificantly Agfa (West Germany) improved the formula.

There's already too many speculative formulae purporting to be Rodinal to go adding another.

Ian

 

OK, I'm on the case

As Alan & Ron have mentioned one problem is that without knowing exact Baume/Secific gravities etc it's difficult to get the exact proportions.

One thing we do know is that Rodinal is Carbonate free, so any formula containing Carbonate isn't close but may well be similar to Agfa's other P-Aminohenol formula R10, which unlike Rodinal has been published officially.

Ian

 

Actually I've found that for some chemicals transposing the Baumé to percentage W/V is remarkably easy.

In the case of "100 cc of liquid sodium bisulphite of density 35 degrees Be" that's actually just a 29/30% solution w/v and in fact is the strength of commercially available Sodium Metabisulphite solution, sold in bulk

So armed with the Specific Gravity's of the chemicals used in Ridinal it'll be easier to get close to the formula for Rodinal/R09

Ian