How can a shockingly good product disappear from the market, just like that?
+ 1The new HC110 is just as good as the old and is a little easier to work with.
Oh, I use ilfotec-HC, and I have stocked 4 quarts of the good old HC-110, so I’m good.
I guess I’m still shocked.
Good grief, at 1+119, that's what, 120 gallons of high dilution working solution? Enough to process roundly 450 rolls of 35mm...
I’m sure I must be over-compensating for something.
Pretty obvious symptoms of insecurity. Seems entirely reasonable, considering what's been happening to the film and chemistry industry since the late 1990s. Sort of like food hoarding by someone with a history of near starvation, or who has reason to expect a famine.
More or less the same reason I'm looking at starting wet plate collodion: DIY photography that uses chemicals that are independent of an established photo industry. Bromide and iodide salts aren't difficult to come by, silver nitrate can be made if necessary from fine silver bullion and nitric acid, which can be made from stump remover, ferrous sulfate for developer can come from the garden store (a supplement for decorative plants in low-iron soils) -- collodion itself is the only thing that might become difficult to source over time because of the workplace hazards of nitration, but it's used in industry, still, for applications where it isn't readily replaced, and it's a co-product of making cellulose nitrate for doping fabric cover airplanes and some kinds of fingernail polish (not to mention the huge ammunition industry, which produces enough nitrocellulose every year to blow up a major city). Denatured ethanol comes from the paint department (it's the thinner for shellac, which is still used in fine woodworking), and non-denatured 180 proof is available in liquor stores some places -- ethyl ether might become hard to source over time (hazardous to store, as well), and the ether in car starting fluid spray isn't the right sort. It's used to make fuel for model airplane diesel engines, but those are getting less common, too, replaced by electric power. I think it might be possible to make ethyl ether in a home lab, I'd have to look up that process. There may also be alternative solvents for collodion, though alcohol/ether has been preferred for more than 150 years.
The beauty of my approach is I don't need to spend all that money up front and store stuff that requires special conditions to last well...
Erasing what you had the best to offer and replacing it with a totally different product and giving it the same name? That’s borderline illegal.
...it's a co-product of making cellulose nitrate for doping fabric cover airplanes and some kinds of fingernail polish (not to mention the huge ammunition industry, which produces enough nitrocellulose every year to blow up a major city)...
If you're already going through the process of making silver nitrate yourself, it only really takes soaking cottonballs in nitric acid for a few hours to make nitrocellulose. Dissolve that in some ether and alcohol and you've got collodion. Nitation isn't really that hazardous, just do it in a fume hood or outside
Easiest and cheapest way to get pure ethanol is to just ferment some sugar and water with wine yeast, extract it with a condenser and column (which are cheap on amazon now), then use some molecular sieves, which you can get on ebay, or from westlab or the scienceshop and reuse indefinitely just by baking them.
Take a few deep breaths. It’s gonna be ok.
The new HC110 is just as good as the old and is a little easier to work with. Try it. You’ll like it.
......only time will tell how long it lasts relative the previous formulation(s).
Unfortunately, it's not that simple....
Also if you want another source of nitrocellulose, you can extract it from pingpong balls using acetone.
These days some pp balls are made of plastic instead of NC
I've used LegacyPro L110 for the past few years with no complaints. No experience with HC-110 so I can't compare, but I like that L110 comes in a smaller pint-sized bottle. It's also non-viscous and very easy to pour and measure, probably similar to the new HC-110. I'm not too concerned about super long term shelf-life, as it takes me about a year to finish a bottle using a 1:31 dilution. The liquid does turn from clear to a darker brown, but with no appreciable loss in quality that I can tell. Feel free to wander over to my Flickr to see some image samples.Thanks Donald. I've just started my last bottle of "old" HC-110 and I was thinking of giving Legacy L-110 a try when I hit the bottom of this bottle. Might give Xtol a try. Anyone else tried L-110?
I've used LegacyPro L110 for the past few years with no complaints. No experience with HC-110 so I can't compare, but I like that L110 comes in a smaller pint-sized bottle. It's also non-viscous and very easy to pour and measure, probably similar to the new HC-110. I'm not too concerned about super long term shelf-life, as it takes me about a year to finish a bottle using a 1:31 dilution. The liquid does turn from clear to a darker brown, but with no appreciable loss in quality that I can tell. Feel free to wander over to my Flickr to see some image samples.
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