Rodinal now almost the same price as crude oil?

jim appleyard · Nov 29, 2005

derevaun said:
Actually, I'm interested to try the acetaminophen recipe, because it just seems like fun. One problem: Red Devil lye is practically impossible to find around here, because it's a raw material for methamphetamine, the production of which is a serious problem in the Pacific Northwest. I read about substituting ammonia for the lye, but that's also a popular ingredient for meth. Maybe there's a clandestine stash kept by local soapmakers

Too bad about not finding lye in your area. I've notice here that hardware stores often carry it as well.

It also sells on ebay in the chemistry section under "cameras and photo". Plus, if I'm not mistaken, both Artcraft Chemicals and Formulary sell it.

srs5694 · Nov 29, 2005

I haven't checked the prices, but my hunch is that The Chemistry Store and Summer Bee Meadow sell sodium hydroxide (lye) online for reasonable prices, although probably not as low as Red Devil Lye if you can find it locally. Both of these outfits cater to soap makers, although TCS has a somewhat wider range than that. Note that TCS has some rather hefty shipping fees, but their prices are low enough that they're a good source, especially if you want several items from them. You'll need to fill out a liability waiver form before they'll ship lye to you. With SBM, it's a Web-based form. IIRC, TCS requires you to fax a form to them.

derevaun · Nov 29, 2005

Thanks for the info, guys! I found some ammonia today; it's 10% Ammonium Hydroxide. Would it be a good starting point to substitute it by volume (taking into account the dilution) for the lye? So, for example change the recipe like this:

6 grams acetaminophen (12 500mg tablets)
20 grams sodium sulfite
8 grams sodium hydroxide / 80ml 10% ammonium hydroxide?
20 ml water

Thanks for any insights!

avandesande · Nov 29, 2005

You can get a solution of sodium hydroxide at home depot, it is called 'professional drain cleaner'. The liquid is safer than messing with the solid anyway.

You have to adjust the molarity of the ammonia solution...
nh3 = 17.03
naoh = 40.00

ratio = .425
.425 * 8 * 10 = 34 grams
I am not sure of the density of that soln so cant tell you how many mls.

Gerald Koch · Nov 29, 2005

derevaun said:
I found some ammonia today; it's 10% Ammonium Hydroxide. Would it be a good starting point to substitute it by volume (taking into account the dilution) for the lye?

Ammonia is not a suitable substitute for either sodium or potassium hydroxide. In a 10% solution of ammonia in water only a very small amount of the ammonia is present as NH4+ and OH- ions. There are insufficient OH- ions to produce the high pH required to make a Rodinal like developer.

Gerald Koch · Nov 29, 2005

To anyone interested in making their own Rodinal like developer I would suggest using the standard recipe using 100 g of p-aminophenol hydrochloride and 300 g of potassium metabisulfite dissolved in 600 ml of water. To this is added a 50% solution of either sodium or potassium hydroxide slowly until the precipitate that initially forms almost redissolves. A very small amount of flocculent precipitate (p-aminophenol base) will be left. The resulting solution is made up to 1 liter. You will need make 400 ml of the hydroxide solution but not all of it will be needed.

The instructions may appear somewhat odd to those familiar with mixing their own developers but there is a sound chemical basis for them. Should you overshoot the mark and all the precipitate dissolve then add a few crystals at a time of potassium metabisulfite until a small amount of precipitate is restored. Using this method you will produce a reliable and consistant developer. The developer made with sodium hydroxide is softer working than that made with potassiuim hydroxide.

Any other recipe or mix of ingredients will produce variable results.

gainer · Nov 29, 2005

Is there a good reason for using the hydrochloride and the metabisulfite instead of the p-aminophenol and sulfite? It seems to me that the end result differs only in the production of an insignificant amount of sodium chloride in the traditional recipe. If in fact it proved to be essential, it could be added as a separate ingredient at any time. The precipitate in the traditional recipe is p-aminophenol, isn't it? If you wind up using too much hydroxide, you could add a little p-aminophenol to get the precipitate.

It is also quite possible to use Metol in place of the p-aminophenol.HCl, and beneficial as well IMHO. The 4 methyl-aminophenol base is practically insoluble but is made soluble as the sodium salt. A solution that begins with 63 g/l of Metol and ends with 2 or 3 grams of the base as precipitate is a potent developer, the 1 + 50 dilution requiring the developing times specified for Rodinal 1 + 25.

avandesande · Nov 29, 2005

p-aminophenol wont dissolve in water either, that is why they start with the hydrochloride. Maybe someone could make a TEA or PG dissolved developer without the salt.

srs5694 · Nov 30, 2005

avandesande said:
p-aminophenol wont dissolve in water either, that is why they start with the hydrochloride. Maybe someone could make a TEA or PG dissolved developer without the salt.

I experimented with this. Basically I just used the PC-TEA recipe but with p-aminophenol.HCl instead of phenidone. I called the result PAC-TEA:

triethanolamine, 99%: 100ml
p-aminophenol hydrochloride: 4.5g
ascorbic acid: 9g

I've used 1:50 dilutions with this developer. It works, but it's a bit slow. My guess is the pH isn't low enough, but I don't have the tools to measure pH. I've not done a lot with this developer, although the acutance seems pretty high and the grain is fairly modest. I haven't tested for film speed, much less done densitometry tests.

Gerald Koch · Nov 30, 2005

gainer said:
Is there a good reason for using the hydrochloride and the metabisulfite instead of the p-aminophenol and sulfite? It seems to me that the end result differs only in the production of an insignificant amount of sodium chloride in the traditional recipe. If in fact it proved to be essential, it could be added as a separate ingredient at any time. The precipitate in the traditional recipe is p-aminophenol, isn't it? If you wind up using too much hydroxide, you could add a little p-aminophenol to get the precipitate.

Using the hydrochloride salt and metabisulfite was probably a matter of commercial availabiity when the initial Rodinal formula was devised. The hydrochloride salt may be more stable or was supplied in a purer form.

avandesande · Nov 30, 2005

The textbook way of purifying amines is to dissolve the freebase in non-polar solvent and then use anhydrous hydrogen chloride to precipitate the solid. That is why they are usually provided as the hydrochloride.

I always though it would be neet to make a developer using a phase transfer catalyst such as benzyl trimethly ammonium hydroxide instead of NaOH. It might offer better speed with less grain...

Gerald Koch said:
Using the hydrochloride salt and metabisulfite was probably a matter of commercial availabiity when the initial Rodinal formula was devised. The hydrochloride salt may be more stable or was supplied in a purer form.

Gerald Koch · Nov 30, 2005

avandesande said:
The textbook way of purifying amines is to dissolve the freebase in non-polar solvent and then use anhydrous hydrogen chloride to precipitate the solid. That is why they are usually provided as the hydrochloride.

Years ago when I first made my own "Rodinal", the recipe actually called for precipitating the base from the HCl salt with sodium carbonate. The precipitate was filtered off and added to the bisulfite solution. Most of the impurities were left in solution and the free base was a light tan color.

modafoto · Nov 30, 2005

jim appleyard said:
Apparently these folks have never heard of Formulary's, Calbe's or the mix-it-yourself version.

That's like saying:

"Men looking for a nice woman haven't heard of masturbation"

Donald Qualls · Nov 30, 2005

Well, for anyone interested in how the acetaminophen version of substitute Rodinal works, I posted an image a few minutes ago ((there was a url link here which no longer exists)) developed in it. At 1:50, it looks like I can use the same times as Rodinal 1:50, with the same correction for my reduced agitation that I normally give published HC-110 times. At 1:100, I had trouble with flow or stand marks (locally increased development with a liquid flow pattern), though I'm still not sure if they were from filling or draining my tubes; in any case, it was running to 25 to 30 minutes to get normal negatives from 1:100.

So, bottom line, for 45 cents in ingredients (including the distilled water), I got enough developer to (if it keeps) process about 50 rolls of 35 mm, or about 80 of my 9x12 cm sheets. The wash water is killing me, but the developer is cheap.

Rodinal now almost the same price as crude oil?

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