Teaspoon measuring

teaspoon measurement

We at the Formulary would like to make the following offer;

1.If anybody would like their order of 100 grams of Metol spooned out of our drum, instead of scaling it for you please let us know when you place your order. This will apply to all chemicals not just Metol.
2. But when you recieve it and find that your 100 gram package only contains 97grams please don't call and complain.
3.If you order a 50# package of Sulfite we can scoop it out to get close or scale it out as we always do. If we scoop it out for you and you only get 49 pounds please don't call and complain.
4. when you order any of our kits, which are prescaled out formulas that we put in a kit box for you, and the formula has 5 chemicals in it please let us know when you place the order if you want it scaled or spooned. Each of the 5 chemicals could be off by what 2%. Please don't call us when the formula isn't the same as you ordered last time.

We scale everything that goes out of this company. There are other ways of doing it, but scaling your orders is the right way to do it. We don't get complaints that our products aren't the right quantity.

What you do with the chemicals when you get them is your business. Supplying them to you in the proper quantity is our business, and we Scale the chemicals.
But as I said anybody that wants us to spoon out your kits just let us know.

By the way thanks all for your support.

Bud Wilson
Photographers Formulary

This has been a very heavy discussion. I have weighed the alternatives and like the scale model.

gainer said:

If it is that critical, the OP will find out soon enough by experimental test of the hypothesis "This amount should work."

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After thinking this over, I realized the full implication.

In essence Patrick is saying here that his method won't work. You have to test to see if the teaspoon method will work in any given instance, and/or you have to fiddle with the amounts used to get it to work properly.

This is going to cost time and also use up some amount of chemistry and light sensitive materials, (film or paper) until you get it right. And, based on what I have found appears to be true in variability of weight / unit volume from batch to batch, that you have to do this every time you buy a new bottle of chemical.

This is a pretty stunning indictment of his own method, by the person who advocates it.

Keep at it until it works guys. Then, you have it pegged! By then you may have run out of patience, chemisty or exhausted your budget for film and paper, or all of the above.

PE

And even if you use a scale, be sure to calibrate occasionally.

I once got into an awkward situation splitting an order of silver nitrate with someone who lived on the other side of the country. He weighed his portion when it arrived and said that he thought it was short. I weighed my remaining portion, and it seemed right. I checked my scale with a 100g calibration weight, and it was off maybe by a gram, but not enough to create the discrepancy that he had noticed. Then he confessed that he was using a $20 scale he got in a head shop, and mine was probably right. You would think head shops would sell very accurate scales, there being some rough characters in that trade.

Formulary/Bud Wilson said:

If anybody would like their order of 100 grams of Metol spooned out of our drum, instead of scaling it for you please let us know when you place your order. This will apply to all chemicals not just Metol.

Click to expand...

Fine by me. I expect you will pass on the cost savings of not having to weigh it out.

And, I expect that you will not require me to return the extra if the 100g package of metol actually contains 103gms.

If the discount is reasonable, and the scooping fair, how should I indicate this on my next order? [insert smiley if you need to]

fotch said:

I have weighed the alternatives and like the scale model.

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Myself, I'll take it with a pinch (+/- 5%) of salt.

On a practical note, how many teaspoons of citric acid should be added to a liter of water to make up a stop bath? It seems silly to buy the stuff already made up and to pay for shipping the water.

We at the Formulary would like to make the following offer;

1.If anybody would like their order of 100 grams of Metol spooned out of our drum, instead of scaling it for you please let us know when you place your order. This will apply to all chemicals not just Metol.
2. But when you recieve it and find that your 100 gram package only contains 97grams please don't call and complain.
3.If you order a 50# package of Sulfite we can scoop it out to get close or scale it out as we always do. If we scoop it out for you and you only get 49 pounds please don't call and complain.
4. when you order any of our kits, which are prescaled out formulas that we put in a kit box for you, and the formula has 5 chemicals in it please let us know when you place the order if you want it scaled or spooned. Each of the 5 chemicals could be off by what 2%. Please don't call us when the formula isn't the same as you ordered last time.

We scale everything that goes out of this company. There are other ways of doing it, but scaling your orders is the right way to do it. We don't get complaints that our products aren't the right quantity.

What you do with the chemicals when you get them is your business. Supplying them to you in the proper quantity is our business, and we Scale the chemicals.
But as I said anybody that wants us to spoon out your kits just let us know.

By the way thanks all for your support.

Bud Wilson
Photographers Formulary

Click to expand...

That's a very flexible offer Bud, would you mind if someone sends you their spoon to scoop with. Not all spoons are of the same standard size Some Chinese spoons are bigger than the Nickle Silver designer ones. Are the scoops tea or table spoons?

Thanks for the wonderful service over there too, the staff members are terrific to talk to over the phone.

For the extremists I can understand weighing but when a chemical is poured out of a baggie or plastic sack how are the particles accounted for that stick to the inside of the plastic? Depending on the chemical the bag can be large or small does this throw off the formula and by what percent? Nothing in the directions say to rinse the bag from the mixing volume.

This isn't the case when the chemical is taken out of a jar and weighed on a scale but some can still stick to the transfer paper unless the chemical is placed directly on the scale and scraped off with a blade that gets scraped clean. The only problem with that is contamination. I can't sleep thinking of these problems now.

Curt;

In prepacked chemical preparations, I rinse out the bag depending on how much solids adhere to the inside due to static electricity. Most of the time here, that is not necessary as it is such a minute quantiy, but depending on the kit size, I do rinse. Some companies suggest that in their instructions especially with liquid kits though.

It does depend on the size of the kit such as one gallon vs 1 quart or 4 L vs 1 L.

PE

Chazzy said:

On a practical note, how many teaspoons of citric acid should be added to a liter of water to make up a stop bath?

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Lets poll the 'net and see what people use, per liter:

• 20 gms
• 15 gms
• 5 gms for film
• 10 gms for paper
• 1/2 oz = 15.0 gms (sic)
• 8 gms
• 1/2 oz/quart

I guess the answer is that it doesn't seem to matter very much... Some things are important, some things aren't, and rarely do people agree on what is and isn't.

FWIW: When I measure it out I get about 18 gms/tablespoon. One tablespoon or 3 teaspoons would seem to give a satisfactory bath.

Now you see that if you want to make a standard solution of something that warrants it, you do not need a scale or balance. You can order the amount you want from the Formulary.

Where did the idea come from that I advocate using teaspoonfulls in place grams or grains? I did use them for quite some time until someone left a balance hidden in my auto. Noone came to claim it, (probably for obvious reasons) so I used it. I still used the teaspoons to get near the weight I wanted and found that they were quite consistent. I would not let lack of a scale or balance deprive me of the joy of playing (and sometimes working) with film and print development. My first enlargers were home made. All of the several densitometers I have owned were home designed and made, including the printed circuit boards. I designed and made my own gouging machine so I could control the thickness of the cane I used to make oboe reeds. I was a NACA engineer at a time when a good monthly pay was $300, and had six children in the first 8 years of marriage.

If you can afford the best of scales, go to it. I now have a triple beam balance that is sensitive to the tenth of a gram, but there are many concoctions that do not require such precision. I value that knowledge above the compulsion to weigh all materials to the milligram nearest to the published value, which might in fact have been arrived at by guess and by gosh. Test your digital scale by weighing coins. Add a penny at a time to see if the scale is linear up to the values that are critical for your work. The number of digits after the decimal has no meaning if the scale is not linear. Precision does not always equate to accuracy. OTOH, if you find your scale is off, but has given you good photos, you learned something more important.

Formulary/Bud Wilson said:

We at the Formulary would like to make the following offer;

1.If anybody would like their order of 100 grams of Metol spooned out of our drum, instead of scaling it for you please let us know when you place your order. This will apply to all chemicals not just Metol.
2. But when you recieve it and find that your 100 gram package only contains 97grams please don't call and complain.
3.If you order a 50# package of Sulfite we can scoop it out to get close or scale it out as we always do. If we scoop it out for you and you only get 49 pounds please don't call and complain.
4. when you order any of our kits, which are prescaled out formulas that we put in a kit box for you, and the formula has 5 chemicals in it please let us know when you place the order if you want it scaled or spooned. Each of the 5 chemicals could be off by what 2%. Please don't call us when the formula isn't the same as you ordered last time.

We scale everything that goes out of this company. There are other ways of doing it, but scaling your orders is the right way to do it. We don't get complaints that our products aren't the right quantity.

What you do with the chemicals when you get them is your business. Supplying them to you in the proper quantity is our business, and we Scale the chemicals.
But as I said anybody that wants us to spoon out your kits just let us know.

By the way thanks all for your support.

Bud Wilson
Photographers Formulary

Click to expand...

Quite clear: Order by weight is preferred implying use by weight.

Anyone can see the writing on the wall.

Steve

Sirius Glass said:

I am an aerospace engineer; I am hardware/software systems engineer; I am a safety expert for NASA and the FAA; I have written books of nuclear safety for the NRC; I am not a photo/film engineer.

I have gone to the trouble to buy a scale to weight 200g with 0.1 gram of accuracy and a 1k scale to weight to 0.2 grams of accuracy. I am here to learn how to process film and prints correctly, accurately, and consistantly.

I am not here to read the vomiting of a self proclaimed expert from outside the photographic field pontificate on the advantages of mixing chemicals in a toilet bowl using questional and inconsistant methods on the cheap!

Am I being direct enough to get through?

Steve

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You dolt. I'm on your side. Can't you read?

The post you quoted from me was directed to PE, to offer him support. In the use of scales.

Please quit killing people with friendly fire. Look before you shoot.

And if it makes you happy, I'm a licensed Professional Engineer.

Am I being direct enough to get through to *you*?

Lost a bit in the noise here is the excellent suggestion that someone made upthread, that it would be really helpful if more people had more information about *how* *tight* the tolerances for various common chemicals and processes are. That benefit would be real irrespective of whether the measurements are made by weight or volume, since the same information would address questions like "If I only trust my scale to about gram accuracy, what can I weigh out with it and what can't I?"

Also, this point:

gainer said:

There are some children in some parts of the world who have been able to experience the joy of making photographic images by using measuring spoons and simple formulae. That is reason enough for me to feel happy with what I have done.

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...is, I submit, really important, kind of underappreciated, and not restricted to children. Maybe I'm unusual in this, but part of the charm of analog for me is the functional, hands-dirty nature of many processes, and the fact that when you back off and stop taking it for granted, the idea that we *have* processes for turning photons into silver is a freakin' MIRACLE.

It's not always about making The Technically Perfect Image. Sometimes it's about being able to make an image at all; sometimes it's about being able to make an image in a startling way; sometimes it's about seeing how much the process can flex if you abuse it. Sometimes it's play rather than work.

I shouldn't think anyone would want to go out of their way to measure by the less precise of several methods they have available, only for that reason (unless it was to make the point that it can be done, like my friend who teaches people to make pies from scratch using no utensils but a fork, a water glass, and a wine bottle). I don't think anyone has advocated that in this thread---inaccuracy for its own sake. On the other hand, surely no reasonable person wants to go out of their way to be more accurate than they need to be; if you need 100g of something +/-2g, you don't need to go find yourself a scale with nanogram accuracy to do it!

Also, I thought the Formulary offer was pretty funny.

-NT

Bruce Watson said:

You dolt. I'm on your side. Can't you read?

The post you quoted from me was directed to PE, to offer him support. In the use of scales.

Please quit killing people with friendly fire. Look before you shoot.

And if it makes you happy, I'm a licensed Professional Engineer.

Am I being direct enough to get through to *you*?

Click to expand...

I was not aiming at you. I have never had a problem with you or your opinions.

I was aiming at people to pontificate about how much one can screw up the chemistry and still get results, even though the results may not be consistent and then pass it off as The Gospel of Photography.

Steve

gainer said:

.... I was a NACA engineer at a time when a good monthly pay was $300, and had six children in the first 8 years of marriage.

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What? Did they fly rockets then or just lit the fuse with a match?

Only kidding.

gainer said:

I was a NACA engineer at a time when a good monthly pay was $300, and had six children in the first 8 years of marriage.

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Well from what you said you had not problem with guidance and thrust-to-mass ratios.

NACA does date you though.

Steve

David A. Goldfarb said:

And even if you use a scale, be sure to calibrate occasionally.

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And not only that, you have to set it to the right unit if the scale is one that allows setting for different systems. You don't want to be measuring grains when you think you are measuring grams.

Sandy King

I think that from the number of kids in 8 years, Patrick's mind was on something else than photography.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

I think that from the number of kids in 8 years, Patrick's mind was on something else than photography.

PE

Click to expand...

PE,

Janice Joplin said, "Get it while you can."

Steve

Tom Lehrer said:

"Act with agility"
"While you have the ability"
"And the fertility"
"Before the onset of senility".

PE

Sirius Glass said:

I was not aiming at you. I have never had a problem with you or your opinions.

I was aiming at people to pontificate about how much one can screw up the chemistry and still get results, even though the results may not be consistent and then pass it off as The Gospel of Photography.

Steve

Click to expand...

And I still ask who, in your inestimable opinion among us APUGers did that? It seems to me that you are among those who claim to know the Divine word about photography.

I love this thread, the remarks from the old timers like me are wonderful.
My 2 cents worth:
Been an engineer since $400.00/month was good pay, ha! An engineer is an applied scientist. I swing
both ways depending on the project. For the chemistry lab and darkroom, I back P.E..
For wooden blocks, I'll go with close, unless tolerances specified. Maybe we should go with the old
pharmacist's 'stricken measure'? Fill a known volume scoop from a bowl of the chemical, then strike it
off level with a business card. Close enough for hand-loading ammunition where +/- 1/10 grain weight
is required. Check with accurate powder scales or triple-beam balance. Remember when graduated
cylinders were real glass and not plastic? They were either marked 'TC' for 'To contain', or 'TD' for
'To Deliver'. That gets us around the rinsing out the last drop, ha! The new teflon graduates are marked
'TC/TD', nothing sticks to them, or so they say.

Carry on gentlemen,

Best regards,

/Clay

Sirius Glass said:

Well from what you said you had not problem with guidance and thrust-to-mass ratios.

NACA does date you though.

Steve

Click to expand...

Yeah. I'm a mature 82 years of age. My wife wouldn't leave me alone. I lived and worked through many changes including the one from NACA to NASA without moving to a new desk. That came later. I was asked by the head of the new Space Task Group to design star charts for use as backup guidance for reentry of the Mercury orbital missions. Why? Because I knew about coordinate transformations. I designed a research planetarium including the star projector for human factors research. I --Oh, what the H E double hockey sticks!
Would all this fuss have come about if I had stipulated that my developer should have 0.375 grams Metol, 2.000 grams ascorbic acid, and 7.3333333 grams of sodium carbonate in 1.000 liters water?

BTW, my late beloved wife graduated fro WVU with a 4.0 (or should it be 4.000) GPA and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.