Wet Plate Developer

Hey everyone,

I took all my wet plate (tintype) stuff to my families home in the mountains to shoot - I had some premade developer shipped to a my family home but something happen with the order and it hasn't shipped and I need the developer for tomorrow afternoon.

I'm considering buying some film or paper developer overnight from amazon. If I did, would this even work? I'm not looking for a perfect solution, but something that will work.

(just for context, I've placed a call with the company to see if they'll overnight it, I've also called all the chemical companies I could find in a 40 mi radius as well as did a search for photographic store. Nada.)

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!

A pharmacy should stock the required chemicals to make a wetplate developer. Iron supplements are often made of Iron sulfate, Amazon also sells Iron sulfate. Glaciel acetic acid might be a problem but maybe the local farmer coop or the pharmacy has some. Grain alcohol = pharmacy or you can use ethanol or methylated Spirit. Destilled water should be available at pretty much every larger Supermarket.

You can use white distilled vinegar in place of glacial acetic acid. Just figure out the equivalencies. GAA is 99% and vinegar is 4-5%. As far as ferrous sulfate, I believe it is used as a soil conditioner so a farmer's supply/horticulture shop might have some. Also, it is used by woodworkers for staining (?) so that might be another source. As MDR said, it is also used as an iron supplement so a vitamin shop or pharmacy should have some on the shelf.

If you need more alcohol in the developer, just pick up some Everclear or denatured alcohol from the hardware store will also work. I've used Sunnyside denatured alcohol brand in formulas. Try to avoid the fumes if you use the latter type.