sodium chloride for gold thiourea toner?

[CreationBear]

I have a bit of alt-print chemistry inbound, but I managed to miss the sodium chloride used in Sandy King's gold/thiourea toner. Normally I would just sub with pickling salt with no anti-caking agent, but given the expense of gold chloride, I wanted to get some expert opinion as to whether it would prudent just to eat the shipping costs and place a small order from one of the usual vendors instead. Any thoughts appreciated!

 

[Adam W]

I use kosher salt (Diamond Crystal or Morton's). It works great for toning Van Dyke brown prints.

 

[CreationBear]

Excellent, thanks Adam--with Clerc's being about the same price by volume as a good single-malt, I really didn't want to get a nasty precipitate of some sort. Otherwise, I'd be interested in what toner you favor for your VDB's--I see a lot of people using thiourea and thiocynate based formulas, but haven't seen, say, what gold/borax looks like.

 

[revdoc]

I use non-iodised cooking salt, but really it hardly matters, because so little is involved.

And a tip for you: if you use it one-shot, you don't have add the gold chloride to the whole volume at the outset. Just mix the other bulk components and store. Add gold chloride to a measured quantity at the bulk solution just before use. One drop of 1% gold chloride per ml is the correct rate. The solution will be yellow initially, then clear after 30 seconds or so. It's good to go after that.

 

[CreationBear]

Excellent, revdoc--I'd come across people mentioning that they replenished their toners, but didn't catch the details. Your approach makes a bit of sense to me!

 

[Adam W]

Excellent, thanks Adam--with Clerc's being about the same price by volume as a good single-malt, I really didn't want to get a nasty precipitate of some sort. Otherwise, I'd be interested in what toner you favor for your VDB's--I see a lot of people using thiourea and thiocynate based formulas, but haven't seen, say, what gold/borax looks like.

Clerc's is the only one I've ever used. I go ahead and mix up a liter at a time. I've used several month's old solution with excellent results.

 

[CreationBear]

Thanks again--it will take a while before I get a feel for what kind of print volume I'm able to maintain, especially since I'm on the steep end of the learning curve. Patience, I'm pretty sure, will remain a virtue...