Toning Kallitypes, B&S 0.2% gold toner?

I was looking through B&W new website, and also the previous post by them and saw Kallitype toning solution at 0.2%. All the other books I've read, and instructions for Kallitypes called for 1% toning solutions.

So, I'd be interested in using the 0.2% formula, if it tones completely (for archival reasons), and if someone knows of a formula for it. If not, I guess I'll go back to the 1%.

Regards,
Martin

From Sandy King's article at UnblinkingEye

Gold Additive — Prepare a gold chloride working solution by mixing 5ml of a 1% gold chloride solution with 20ml distilled water. Add the working solution to the sensitizer at about 1 part gold working solution to 9 parts sensitizer.

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I believe that works out to be about 0.25%. I plan on doing some gold toning of Kallitypes this weekend; and would appreciate any suggestions/guidelines.

doughowk said:

From Sandy King's article at UnblinkingEye

I believe that works out to be about 0.25%. I plan on doing some gold toning of Kallitypes this weekend; and would appreciate any suggestions/guidelines.

Click to expand...

Just to clairify, the addition of additive to the sensitizer prior to coating is different from toning. In adding a small amount of gold chloride solution to the sensitizer before coating you will change the image characteristics of the image and some of the metal making up the final print will be gold. However, the image will continue to be made up primarily of silver metal.

In toning, we replace the silver image with gold, palladium or platinum, and the final image is made up primarily of one of the more noble metals which have replaced silver.

Sandy King

So should I add enough of the 0.2% to bring it up to the 1.0% solution amount for toning, or is it better to just buy the 1.0% already mixed?

menglert said:

So should I add enough of the 0.2% to bring it up to the 1.0% solution amount for toning, or is it better to just buy the 1.0% already mixed?

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This is the gold toner I use.

Gold Toner #1

Citric acid 5g
5% gold chloride solution 5ml
Distilled water to make 1000ml

Use one shot. You need a minimum of about 50 ml of the stock solution to tone an 8X10 kallitype, assuming toning time of ten minutes.

Sandy King

What I think is being lost here is in semantics. Adding gold chloride to the coating solution usually requires a 1% solution or stronger to have a noticeable effect.

The toning kit I refered to in my other post is used post-exposure and development. About 50 ml of the .2% gold chloride, 50 ml of 2% ammonium thiocyanate and 900 ml of water are added to a darkroom tray. The developed and washed image is agitated in the tray for a minute or two and the gold will attach itself to the silver on the surface of the print.

Toning gives a different color and affects the highlights and shadows differently than adding it to the coating solution. My brother Kevin has more experience with that than I do, so maybe he'll chime in here and clarify a bit.

As far as economy, we've priced our gold chloride solutions based on the number of grams of gold in the solution. A 500ml bottle of 1% solution is the same price as a 100ml bottle of 5% solution, because they both contain the same amount of gold.