Rodinal-like developer from Metol

gainer · Mar 21, 2007

Some further experimenting with use as paper developer: it is a rather soft developer, good for those negatives that should have grade 1 paper when all you have is grade 2. Addition of hydroquinone or sodium ascorbate will put more snap in normal scenes.

dancqu · Mar 23, 2007

gainer said:
Some further experimenting with use as paper developer:
it is a rather soft developer, good for those negatives that
should have grade 1 paper when all you have is grade 2.
Addition of hydroquinone or sodium ascorbate will put
more snap in normal scenes.

No surprise. Metol alone, however you activate, is a replay
of Ansco 120 or Beer's 1. Those last two, BTW, the same
formula save for the concentration of the stock solutions.

I've activated with sulfite alone, D23, and could not see
any difference though paper slower and slower to develop.
Add hydroquinone and you'll see a real change in contrast.
May be as good or better than Beer's 1 through 7 as a
contrast control developer. Dan

Sparky · Mar 23, 2007

What am I missing out on here...? Isn't that how one would make perceptol or microdol-x? Supposedly very different developers from Rodinal... I know the latter two are metol base primarily with Na2SO3. Is that wrong?

dancqu · Mar 23, 2007

Sparky said:
What am I missing out on here...?

I think what is absent from mind is this threads subject;
"Rodinal-like developer from Metol" So, a very concentrated
very high ph, low sulfite developer is the subject.

My last post touched in general on metol only developers.
Mr. Gainers Rodinal substitute, hydroxide powered metol,
may be unique. Dan

gainer · Mar 23, 2007

It may very well be a high pH developer, but the ratio of hydroxide to Metol is such that there is just enough of each to form the sodium salt of metol. I don't have a pH meter, but I wouldn't expect the working pH to be much different from that of a similar molar concentration of sodium carbonate. Maybe someone with the proper equipment who knows how to use it can measure the pH of the concentrate and of several different concentrations of working solution just for fun. Of course, if you were to bubble sulfur dioxide gas through a sodium hydroxide solution, you would eventually reach a solution of sodium sullfite in water, which is not nearly as alkaline as the original hydroxide solution. The old rough test is to see whether the solution feels soapy. I haven't paid much attention to that. It would not be good for one with Metol allergy to try.

claudiosz · Apr 20, 2007

I have prepared 250 ml for a try, and is really impressive the high resolution of my negs. I tried with TMX 2 1/4x3 1/4, and is the look of high definition that I am looking for. I did my own experience with a solution of metol in TEA, 318 g/l and add the sulfite and hidroxide. I like a lot.

joefromhun · Apr 27, 2007

Hi everybody. I'm new here. 2 days ago I tried to mix this developer, but there was nothing to filter, I didn't see precipitate in the solution. After 2 hours I put the other chemicals into , the developer's colour is brownish-yellow, but works. Is it normal? The developed negs are very soft (Agfa APX 400S) , and lighters than the others developed in 1:50 Rodinal.
Please forgive my bad english, I'm hungarian. Have a good day, Joe

Tom A · Apr 27, 2007

Hi Joe, I mixed this developer a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t have any precipitate either. The colour is light golden hue, and the developer works fine. My result with this developer looks very much like the results that I get from R09.

Tom

craigclu · Apr 28, 2007

Patrick, could you expand on the precipitate expectations? I recall giving this a shot when first posted and found no precipitate as others have mentioned. What are we missing here? What micron filter are you referring to? I use the standard milk filters in a ceramic perfed funnel rig and wonder if you are using something finer?

Snapshot · Dec 15, 2007

For those of you who are interested, the pH of this developer is approximately 11.8 at 1+50 dilution. The original value I posted was incorrect. I triple checked the reading this time. Pardon any inconvenience this may have caused.

WDX-RED · May 27, 2009

Yesterday I used METOLAL developer...

Film - Ilford Delta 3200@3200 - 35mm film

METOLAL - 1+25, 11minutes @ 70F ( 25x13ml of water + 13ml of METOLAL )

Time - 11minutes for RODINAL - DigitalTruth - 3200 in RODINAL

Film is low transparent, I'm confuse...It is completly darker than normal, everywhere....And on film there are a stripes from the perforation to down....It is looks like the METOLAL was exhausted....

I used - 4g METOL, 8,5g sodium sulfite (anhy), 3,8g sodium hydroxide to 100ml of water....

I will try HP5+, 1+50, 8minutes @70F and I'll post results....
(50x6,5ml of water + 6,5ml of METOLAL)

glbeas · May 27, 2009

Sounds a bit like over agitation to get the stripes from the sprocket holes. You might want to re-check the components to be sure the concentrations are right.

Alan Johnson · May 27, 2009

I did not get a precipitate either but the all-in version works OK.
It gives slightly more grain than Rodinal.
With Metolal I found it necessary to use double the time quoted on digitaltruth development chart for Rodinal to give similar density,which may explain why negatives referred to by WDX look a bit thin.

WDX-RED · May 27, 2009

So, double the time ? 22minutes, 1:25 METALOL, Delta3200@3200 70F.....

WDX-RED · May 27, 2009

I developed Ilford PAN 100@100 ( similar to FP4+)

Metolal 1+50, 8minutes, @70F, agitation for the first 30 second, than 10 seconds every minute, pre-bath (wet) in 70F water for 1 minute...

picture.....CLICK HERE

Metolal suprised me....

I will try increase the contrast, somewhere about 5-6minutes at 1+25.....

gainer · Jun 17, 2009

I think the precipitation occurs when the metol base is formed, when just enough hydroxide is added to form the nearly insoluble base, but not yet enough to form the soluble salt, just as happens when we make Rodinal. If we add the total calculated amount of hydroxide, the change from soluble to insoluble and back to soluble occurs continuously and so is not noticed.

Georges-le-gard · Aug 21, 2009

If you see how much coast a bottle of Rodinal, I have some problems to find out my interest to do it by myself.
The development of my films takes me already enough time.
But it is nice to know that we can produce the Rodinal by ourself the day I won't find it any more on the market.

Alan Johnson · Aug 25, 2009

I just tested my Metolal stored in a 1/3 full sealed glass bottle for 28 months.
It seems not to work anymore,blank film.I tried adding more sodium hydroxide but this did not revive it, failure was not due to atmospheric CO2 reacting with hydroxide in the original mix.
I wonder if the sulfite content of the concentrate could be increased.
(1) Crawley (BJP Jan 6 1961) found sodium sulfite at 5g/L in the working solution is best with Metol as developing agent,it removes the oxidation products.
(2) More sulfite might be a better preservative if oxidation was the cause of the failure.
To get 5g/L at 1:50 dilution means 250g/L sulfite in the concentrate.
This is close to the solubility I looked up 270g/L.
I wonder if there is any opinion on increasing the sodium sulfite in the concentrate.

Ian Grant · Aug 25, 2009

The opening words give the game away.

A 1/3 full bottle has enough oxygen present to allow the Metol to oxidise over that period of time.

Rodinal & R09 use slightly more Sulphite than Crawley suggest but as the more souble Potassium form

Ian

Alan Johnson · Aug 26, 2009

It seems quite likely the shelf life of this developer could be increased by keeping it in two parts,a lower pH one with metol and sulfite and one with sodium hydroxide.
It would end up something like FX-1 or Beutler with a hydroxide part B,something not tried very much.

Mike1234 · Aug 26, 2009

Regarding oxidation: When I did my own processing... long ago... I used glass marbles to take up volume thereby displacing air space.

Philippe-Georges · Aug 27, 2009

Shelf life?
Who is afraid of the Rodinal Wolf...

Alan Johnson · Aug 27, 2009

To my failed Metolal I added enough metol to make the original concentration 40g/L.The metol appears slightly acidic and I had to add some sodium hydroxide to the 1:50 working solution to increase the pH from ~9 to ~11.
The metol addition restored the developing activity of the failed Metolal and I successfully developed a test film in the working solution at pH 11.
Thus,in the failed Metolal,it was the metol that failed not the sulfite or hydroxide.In Rodinal, p-aminophenol would not be expected to fail so rapidly IMO.
Only one experiment but it does suggest that metol undergoes some oxidation or hydrolysis to which p-aminophenol is not susceptible.

Ian Grant · Aug 27, 2009

We are touching on this in the Modern alternatives to Rodinal thread.

There are good reasons why Afgfa, Ilford Kodak, Johnsons etc went down the p-Aminophenol route. Most of the early research is probably lost unfortunately.

Ian

Relayer · Dec 3, 2010

gainer said:
I have had an attack of viral encephalitis and a computer brain failure since then, so I calculated that for every molecular weight of Metol there should be 4 molecular weights of hydroxide, which could of course be either sodium or potassium. 2 moles are used to change the H2SO4 to Na2SO4 and 2 more to create the sodium salt of Metol.

Metol MW is 344.38, MW of NaOH is 40, so 40g of Metol = 0.114M and we need 4*0.116*40 = 18.584g of NaOH for create Metol.base.Na2 salt ((C7H10NO)2.Na2). now we can rewrite Metolal formula as:

Sodium Sulfite 85g
Metol 40g + NaOH 18.584g = 34.18g of Metol.base.Na2 salt
NaOH 38-18.584=19.416g
Water 1l

i.e. we have 19.4g of free NaOH in concentrate!
I think that this formula is very different from EZRodinal where concentrate haven't any free of NaOH. When we dilute Metotal 1:50 we have:

Sodium Sulfite 1.7g
Metol.base.Na2 salt 0.68g
NaOH 0.4g
Water 1l

I know only one receipt like this. Here is the link (russian) and here is translation to english. receipt is simple:

20ml of D23 stock
12ml of 20% solution of NaOH
Water to 300ml

recalculate to 1l of all components:

Sodium Sulfite 6g
Metol 0.45g
NaOH 7.2g
Water 1l

this is equivalent to

Sodium Sulfite 6g
Metol 0.45g + NaOH 0.2g = 0.385g of Metol.base.Na2 salt
NaOH 7g
Water 1l

Rodinal-like developer from Metol

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