Windisch Surface Developer _ what's correct

[Photo Engineer]

Sandy;

Thanks. I see that you are doing the same in your efforts. Best wishes.

PE

 

[wogster]

Have you actually read Crawley's extended 1960/1 article Ron, or seen the formulae listings in the BJP Almanac's and Annuals he edited.

Unlike Bill Troop, Crawley didn't purport to have inside knowledge from any company in his original article, he merely examined some of the then commercially available developers. Kodak developers have been published over many years in the BJP, in fact the BJP pre-dates Kodak by roughly 30 years, and began publishing Kodak formulae when they were first release, I'd guess from around 1900 onwards. Crawley merely continued to publish the Kodak formulae that were already listed (which happen to be the ones in question), and they don't differ from the Koadak Formulary.

Crawley wasn't interested in what variations Kodak had in research files back then (1960/1) but rather in devising what he thought then were state of the art formulae. He had started the publication of formulae in the BJP all companies released formulae for publication. In another thread someone mentioned that Kodak didn't start selling chemistry until 1938, I've no idea how true that is but in their UK adverts in the BJP everything for Photo-finishers is listed except chemistry, and Australian/New Zealand branch has none either (separate adverts), in fact no pre-packed chemical at all.

In many ways Crawley is mainly useful for his writings in a more general sense and observing how he tackled developer design. His name was only introduced into this thread because Bill seems to attribute the 3.1/5.9 weights etc to him, while they were in fact Kodak's own weights, and very widely published.

Lets leave Crawley aside as he's totally irrelevant in the differences with the rounded off formulae and played no part in them, if or when Kodak published formulae they have to be accepted as being correct, after all they are primary sources of data.

The fact that a great many Kodak formulae have been published by others with the Metric weights rounded off means that they aren't strictly accurate and we have to accept that the original Kodak weights are in fact historically correct for the formulae.

Ian

I think the issue here is, when we look at a published formula, of a Kodak developer, unless it's on Kodak letterhead, or a PDF of a document on Kodak letterhead, we really don't know what the publisher has done to the formula. In the 1960's when this seemed to take place, metric was not commonly used in Britain or the US, so it was likely converted to either Imperial or US measure, depending on the intended audience.

It's entirely possible that a British writer in the early 1960's converted a formula from metric to Imperial, but the magazine editor wanting to reach the very early metric audience in Britain, then converted back to metric, to publish both ways for publication, unaware that the formula had originally been released in metric by Kodak. Considering that metric is not commonly used in the US, this is probably a common mistake made by people even today.

There is a saying in computer science, that every time a piece of information is handled by a person, the chance of at least one error doubles, in the early 1960's before the widespread use of computers, errors in transcription and conversion were quite common.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Paul;

This back and forth conversion is plausible, but all Kodak publications give formulas in both English and Metric units at least back to the 40s. So, although I can accept it, I have trouble with it at the same time.

I agree though in the transcription error problem.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

Why lie Bill

Finally, Ian, why not pick on Kodak instead of me? In all the publications I have seen from the 70s and 80s, Kodak always printed D-61a correctly. I do not of course take credit for this, but am glad to note they got it right in the end.

Kodak never to my knowledge published D61a using Sodium Carbonate (monohydrated) so the FDC version has been converted. Kodak usually gave the weights for anhydrous & crystalline forms of Carbonate.

We aren't disputing that Kodak published the formulae as they did in the 40's onwards, although Bill Troop seems to be saying they were now all wrong .

Ian, nothing you say takes away from the simple fact that Crawley published his own conversions from avoirdupois. He did the maths himself. ?

What's at issue here is that Bill Troop is accusing Crawley of reconverting D61a from the Avoirdupois and making errors, which us just a plain simple lie, if he did reconvert - which seems rather absurd as Kodak publish all theier formulae in metric anyway, then he came to exactly the same result as the metric weights Kodak originally published anyway, see attachments below.

Troop is merely muddying the water to try and hide the fact he himself was not aware of the original Kodak data, as I mentioned earlier it's not just D61a but many more formulae that were later rounded off.

Personally I've no idea who or when rounded off the Formulae for general publication but I was always lead to believe this was done for small scale home users whose balances were often only accurate to around 0.5 of a gram. That doesn't make them wrong just far a less accurate & simplified reflection of the original Kodak products.

Kodak Researchers etc would need to use the originals for comparative purposes.

Look at the linked images Kodak & Crawley versions are in complete agreement so Troops comments are facetious, the left is Kodak 1948, the right Crawley 1972.

Ian

 

[billtroop]

Ian, may I suggest, before you accuse people of lying, which is bound to be taken seriously by some, that you check your facts? Geoffrey Crawley is just a phone call away.

May I further suggest that you go in to the call with an open mind and a calm, cheerful disposition? Elderly retired photochemists do not as a rule like to encounter overexcited persons. Neither do younger ones, come to think of it.

 

[Ian Grant]

Bill stop dead in your tracks. Read this post FULLY

We ARE NOT TALKING about Crawley, rather your own inability to accept that the Kodak Formulae that both Ron and I have now placed in this thread differ from what you put in the FDC. (D61a isn't in the DCB). The Kodak publications are freely available for anyone to see.

As Crawley only ever published a few Kodak formulae in the Formulae section of the BJP Almanac's & Annuals and they all match the official Kodak Formulary & Data Guide why on earth would I want to call him. It's totally immaterial.

Read the Original Kodak Data for yourself, you'll see just how many Formulae were later dumbed down deliberately for easier mixing on a small set of home scales.

This is what we are discussing, yet all you can do is keep referring back to Crawley, he didn't work for Kodak so is not relevant, except you first spotted the different version of D61a in the BJP, but as we, Ron & I, repeatedly have to explain to you is that they were Published by Kodak first, over a period of around 20 years before Crawley even joined the BJP. Your inability to grasp that plain simple fact is quite staggering.

Ian

 

[billtroop]

Ian, of course I know Kodak mis-published the formula years ago! But they publish it correctly today. You state they've dumbed it down. I just don't know where you get this information from. I've never heard it before. But I know from Harold Russell, who was there, at the time, that the correct formula is the one with integer amounts. So does every other chemist in the world who has ever formulated a film developer.

I also know that Geoffrey Crawley made the conversions himself, because he told me so. That they co-incide with some of Kodak's is OK. That just tells us how the mistake was made in the first place.

Kodak has corrected the mistake. Shouldn't you?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ian;

Kodak published D61a formulas using both the monohydrate and anhydrous forms of Sodium Carbonate. See the table in my post above for the comparison.

Avoirdupois measures vs Metric (rounded up or down) in the cases I compared do not match correctly. Therefore, there is an error in the Kodak published conversions themselves.

I am therefore agreeing and disagreeing with you and Bill depending on which parts of all of these posts you are discussing. I have cited both points of agreement and disagreement in my preceeding posts.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

Bill of course I accept that Kodak rounded off quite a number of formulae, that doesn't make them corrections. I think it was L.A. Mannheim who wrote somewhere about the rounding off of the formulae, in a Focal Press publication, which I may still have somewhere.

The original Formulae were never mistakes or mis-published, but if you want to persist in saying that, that's up to you. The facts are they were published like that in both US & UK Professional Publications and in Kodak Harrow's own internal Research Formulary, so we have to accept that they were accuarte.

There may well be a very good reason we are no longer aware of (that includes the Kodak people you talked to) for the non integer (or half integer) weights, but they were like that for a purpose.

Personally if I was writing about them I'd acknowledge the fact that they were changed regardless of which version I was publishing, for reasons of clarity, as people may come across both versions.

My gut feeling and based on what I read by Mannheim in the early 70's is that those non-integer weights are due to manufacturing, which may well have been non metric back then, remember that the US still makes chemistry that's non metric. If that's so then perhaps it's no coincidence that the Avoirdupois weights convert to those non integer figures and you may be right Crawley may have checked the calculations, but he didn't make mistakes all 5 or 6 Kodak formulae regularly in the BJP Annuals under his editorship match the originals in the Kodak Formulary. Perhaps like you he was surprised at the non Integer nature of those formulae
.
Interestingly the Avoirdupois figures stay constant in the non Integer & Rounded off versions, I have checked and in the originals the Avoirdupois & Metric convert convert very accurately to the 3.1, 2.1, 5.9 etc, so there's no way the formulae were published incorrectly, and mistakes.

You will find that throughout the thread I have never said the rounded of versions are wrong rather just different, we have to accept that the figures have been rounded off at a later date.

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

Ian;

Avoirdupois measures vs Metric (rounded up or down) in the cases I compared do not match correctly.
PE

I checked the Metol, Hydroqinone, Bisulphite and Bromide of the Kodak Resaerch Formulary (Harrow) & also the UK Chemicals and Formulae and converting the Avoirdupois weight to metric all 4 were accurate conversions to around 0.01 of a gram.

The key for some reason seems to be the Avoirdupois weights. It makes sense to round off the metric figures for simplicity but you are losing Kodak's original accuracy.

Ian

 

[billtroop]

>but you are losing Kodak's original accuracy

That's where you make your tragic mistake, Ian! There was no original accuracy. There was an original misprint.

>My gut feeling and based on what I read by Mannheim in the early 70's

But L.A. Mannheim was an unimportant hack writer for Focal Press, whilst Harold Russell was one of the most important people in Kodak research. Russell was responsible for such basic, decisive innovations as the first practical hardening fixer (F-5), described I think in an old JSMPTE; he formulated most of the Kodak fixers we know and still use today. He patented such basic technologies we take for granted today, such as the use of sodium metaborate (Kodalk) in film developers; ditto the use of triethanolamine. Now I don't have a firm recollection of this, but I suspect he invented the very D-61a we have been discussing. It was Russell, in any event, who told me that the fiddly decimals in the principal ingredients was a mistake. Why did I ask Russell? Because Haist told me he was the man who would know.

To illustrate this to yourself, Ian, do a patent search for Harold D. Russell. Look at some of his stuff from the 1930s. In the many formulae Russell publishes, several have the similar amounts to those we have been talking about as regards D-61a. None of the amounts are any but integer values. Russell would have laughed at anyone who did that. It wasn't in his style to be fiddly. Who knows? You may even find the original publication or patent for D-61a.

Grant Haist thinks he was the greatest of all the Kodak scientists, because he was responsible for the most practical, economical work. In the 1940s, he was put in charge of developing the revolutionary xomat and versamat machines. This was Kodak's biggest development project up to that time, with a budget of the then astronomical sum of one million dollars. Harold was the boss. And he delivered.

As to the original (not necessarily the first published, but the original) formula of D-61a, who am I going to trust?

You? An internet person who uses a lot of bold and who doesn't seem to have published anything about photochem?

LA Mannheim, a hack for Kraszna-Krausz who was responsible for as much misinformation as most Focal Press authors?

or Harold Russell - - one of the true greats of Rochester?

 

[Photo Engineer]

I checked the Metol, Hydroqinone, Bisulphite and Bromide of the Kodak Resaerch Formulary (Harrow) & also the UK Chemicals and Formulae and converting the Avoirdupois weight to metric all 4 were accurate conversions to around 0.01 of a gram.

The key for some reason seems to be the Avoirdupois weights. It makes sense to round off the metric figures for simplicity but you are losing Kodak's original accuracy.

Ian

Ian;

Two formulas quote Metol as 3.0 and 45 grains vs 3.1 and 45 grains. This should be 3.0/45 = 3.1/x or 46.5. With comparable rounding this should change to 47 grains or be printed at 46.5 grains.

If you go the other way or 3/x = 3.1/45 you have 43.5 or 44 grains. (this back and forth is to show what either Crawley or Russell or both may have done (IDK). This is a variation of from 47 - 44 grains. The English is not being treated properly. This happens over and over in these formulas.

Something is wrong no matter how you look at it. I have found this in several textbooks which say one thing and do another in the table.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

Jesus Bill, L.A. Mannheim's writing and Crawley's will always way surpass yours in importance.

LA Mannheim, a hack for Kraszna-Krausz who was responsible for as much misinformation as most Focal Press authors?

Just like you then . . . . . . or hadn't you noticed you write for Focal Press.

So your also saying that :.F.A. Mason (Ilford) and by default G.I.P. Levenson (Kodak) didn't know their chemistry ?

Climb down of your woodworm riddled rocking horse, you're like a child on a worn out toy that you won't let go.

There were NO MISPRINTS in the Kodak publications, Avoirdupois weights/ratios match perfectly to the metric for D61a, this all came from Kodak Research themselves NOT third party technical writers.

Don't you ever read preceding posts I don't disagree about the lack of integer weights, but your misprint theory has to be have been carried over to too many formulae and then why no mistakes in others. It's not logical.

As I said before there's a reason that pre-dates Haist, Ron etc or anyone else you've spoken to that's lost in time.

When did Kodak start selling pre-packed chemistry to the public ? 1938 has been mentioned in another thread, and adverts and new product reviews I have show no chemistry at all in 1935, but Kodak were publishing formulae.

Just face a few logical facts, Kodak Research would not have the wrong data in their own internal Formulary, they were the same people who had devised and formulated the final working formulae in the first place. The same data was published US, UK and doubtless elsewhere.

The more you write the less credible you become.

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

If you look carefully it's a whole host of Formulae that change, the metric getting rounded off, but the Avoirdupois staying pretty much the same, relenishers hange slightly.

The 1944 metric Kodak Research formulae are true to the Avoirdupois.

Ian

Ian;

Two formulas quote Metol as 3.0 and 45 grains vs 3.1 and 45 grains. This should be 3.0/45 = 3.1/x or 46.5. With comparable rounding this should change to 47 grains or be printed at 46.5 grains.

If you go the other way or 3/x = 3.1/45 you have 43.5 or 44 grains. (this back and forth is to show what either Crawley or Russell or both may have done (IDK). This is a variation of from 47 - 44 grains. The English is not being treated properly. This happens over and over in these formulas.

Something is wrong no matter how you look at it. I have found this in several textbooks which say one thing and do another in the table.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ian;

The items I quote are both from Kodak publications, Kodak used Metric, and the English are unchanged as you note for some items, but then these two formulas differ in using Anh and Monohydrated Carbonate which puts into question which value is right for the substitutioin. Continuing, the same text says that they use Borax at x g/l but for Kodalk must change it to x g/l. Unfortunately, x = x and therefore there is no change but the text says that there is one! So, another misprint.

I could go on and on, but the fundamental truth here is that none of these formulas can be trusted, and the variation as I stated above, will give different results in some respect when used as developers. I would have to go through every chemical in these formulas, at every scale to see if they have made any other conversions that are not correct, but it seems to me that they round up or down as the spirit moves them rather than keeping to one rounding rule or keeping to one decimal place in all of the formulas.

Actually, one book goes so far as to give 1 - 2 decimals of accuracy which was not common back then except, as Bill noted, unless they used stock solutions of some of these chemicals such as KI or NaBr to get such accuracy.

PE

 

[billtroop]

>So you[']r[e] also saying that :.F.A. Mason (Ilford) and by default G.I.P. Levenson (Kodak) didn't know their chemistry ?

No, as everyone knows, I liked them very much (and they liked me), and nobody has done more than me in recent years to keep Levenson's reputation alive. But admirable as each was in his own way, neither comes near to Russell's calibre or importance in so many fundamental respects. Russell is at the core of practical and commercial photochemistry as we know it today. There is no other figure who comes close to his lifetime achievements - - for which, by the way, he considered himself quite ill-recompensed. He was the only person at Kodak I knew who said that, but he wasn't a grumpy person. He really had been ill-served, considering how much money he'd made for them.

>The 1944 metric Kodak Research formulae are true to the Avoirdupois.

Ian, that's what proves they are wrong. KRL only, ever formulated in metric. That's Russell's point at least from his point (late 1920s if I recall correctly) on. Apparently what happened is that someone rounded off the formula to make it easier to use in avoirdupois; then, noticing a bit too much disparity, tampered with the metric. I am just guessing here of course. What I do know, from the most impeccable source, is that when D-61a was formulated in the lab, the numbers were not rounded off. And what I also know is that when nobody was measuring photochem in avoirdupois anymore, Kodak reverted to printing the formula correctly. Obviously, it was an issue that rankled many.

Apparently, all subsequent confusion is due to the effort to keep the avoirdupois figures going.

You'll notice that by the time avoirdupois was no longer important, Kodak invariably published the correct version. Correct, unrounded figures are what you will see in Russell's patents as well.

Just look them up!

And Ian, will you please spare me (and the rest of us) the chauvinistic trip? Nobody, nobody, nobody, has done more for British photochemistry than me. When I told Geoff Crawley what I was going to say about him in the introduction to FDC, he was completely overcome. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was very moving. Nobody, nobody, nobody, had ever done that for him before. And I arranged, at the time of publication, for his black and white chemistry to be re-introduced to America. Nobody wanted to touch it! But I told whoever it was who had the rights (I forget - - Saunders?) what I was going to say about his products, and promised them demand would be high. And they made sure the products would be available at the same time as the book. I don't know how well the products did - - I never asked - - but I was directly responsible for getting them back in the US and giving them another chance.

Of course, I was also responsible for misprinting FX-37. But then, so was GC.

I am not responsible for misprinting D-61a. I had that one from the horse's mouth.

 

[Ian Grant]

Even more self opinionated and narcissistic than usual.

KRL only, ever formulated in metric

I've said that all along, they converted to Avoirdupois which is why we or Crawley can convert back again accurately

the chauvinistic trip? Nobody, nobody, nobody, has done more for British photochemistry than me.

Except of course Jacobson & Mason etc

I'm reminded to quote from some of your long rambling previous posts, where no-one except you is ever right, but I'll refrain for now.

You have a right to an opinion, but not claim that you are right and a whole generation of Kodak chemists were wrong with actual formulae they published.

I'm not claiming either old or new version of a formulae is wrong, and Ron would most probably agree that revisions are made, formulae get changed, what I'm saying is you most certainly aren't in any position to make an arbitrary decision that the Kodak Photo-chemist of the 40's, 50.s & 60's were wrong.

You appear to have no a formal academic training in any form of Research or you wouldn't be constantly taking such blinkered viewpoints.

A balanced approach would accept that both sets of data are correct, but that the simpler rounded off versions are probably good enough for general use. But also accepting the older versions are equally valid, but may have lapsed in usage, but may reflect the actual packaged production product more accurately.

Finally I'd remind you that until this thread you apparently have been attributing the 3.1, 5.9. 2.1 etc weights you'd seen in a formula for D61 to Crawley miscalculations, and had no knowledge of the original Kodak D61a formulae as published from the 40's until well into the 70's and beyond

But just climb down of your rocking horse and join the real world for a change

Ian

 

[billtroop]

>You have a right to an opinion, but not claim that you are right and a whole generation of Kodak chemists were wrong with actual formulae they published.

But Ian, I haven't expressed an opinion. I have reported what Harold Russell said about the formula. Obviously, he was right, and of course, Kodak agrees. That's I presume why they stopped misprinting the formula. But the larger point is, when you get a fact from someone of that calibre, it is pretty decisive.

>Except of course Jacobson & Mason etc

Mason wrote a good, if not great, book about photographic chemistry. But even setting aside his two relatively insignificant patents, he was nowhere near as towering a figure as Russell. He's simply not in the same class.

Jacobson was a drudge whose book, as I said earlier, was so riddled with mistakes that it inspired me to write my own. I made sure to get plenty of high calibre help, and in that respect, I don't think anyone other than James and Haist did better than me. In any case, I don't think it's fair to Mason to conjoin him with poor old dimwitted Jacobson.

Finally, another blooper,

>Kodak never to my knowledge published D61a using Sodium Carbonate (monohydrated) so the FDC version has been converted. Kodak usually gave the weights for anhydrous & crystalline forms of Carbonate.

In fact, for some number of decades, Kodak publications preferentially are published using sodium carbonate monohydrate. The reason is that it is so much more stable than either the anhydrous or decahydrate forms. The monohydrate is always to be preferred, despite its higher cost, especially now. I'm talking, of course, about publications in the US--in other parts of the world it was not necessarily either available or affordable. Stability of alkali has always been a big concern for Rochester, as you can glean from Russell's early patents -- this was crucial to the early packaging.

 

[wogster]

Ian;

Two formulas quote Metol as 3.0 and 45 grains vs 3.1 and 45 grains. This should be 3.0/45 = 3.1/x or 46.5. With comparable rounding this should change to 47 grains or be printed at 46.5 grains.

If you go the other way or 3/x = 3.1/45 you have 43.5 or 44 grains. (this back and forth is to show what either Crawley or Russell or both may have done (IDK). This is a variation of from 47 - 44 grains. The English is not being treated properly. This happens over and over in these formulas.

Something is wrong no matter how you look at it. I have found this in several textbooks which say one thing and do another in the table.

PE

So which is right, well to find out you need to know exactly how many grains are in a gram, and make sure that your dealing with the right liquid measure for the final developer.

One grain is actually 64.79891 milligrams, as defined by SI, so 45 grains would be 2,915.95095mg or 2.91595095 g so both versions are actually wrong. 3,0g would be 46.297075059 grains.

However if you assume that the grain measurement was in US liquid quarts (there are 1.0566882094 quarts in a Litre), and the grams in Litres then 3.0g would be 43.813373375 grains, still wrong, now lets use the 3.1g version it would be 47.840310894 grains per Litre or 45.265513689 grains per US quart. You could round that off to 45 and be close enough.

There are lots of places where a conversion could go wrong, especially if you were doing the math by hand and didn't keep all the decimal places.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have Kodak publications that ostensibly have the same formula for D61a but one uses Na2CO3 (anhydrous) and the other uses NA2CO3.H2O (monohydrate). Of course the other values don't match either, but that is what the whole argument is about. So, Ian I have this evidence right beside me right now.

It seems that we have at least 3 formulas for D61a, or if you look at the English vs Metric, perhaps as many as 6 formulas. These vary by about 0.1 grams or more or by 3 - 4 grains and the variation is not all due to rounding, but appears to be rounding if one allows random ups and downs! Of course this is not good science so if you see random rounding it is error from a scientific standpoint. Kodak would not have done this intentionally.

Now, this variation may not lead to a huge problem, but over the sets of formulas, the variation seems to me to be larger in the English units versions than in the Metric versions. Taking that into account and saying that it exists in other formulas leads me to believe that depending on what you use, you may get from 1 - 2 JNDs in film processed in any one of the formulas.

A JND is a "Just Noticeable Difference". This means that I don't know what particular variable will change, but that if I compared films from all three developers I would be able to say that in at least one case I would be able to say that this film differs from that film, and that they were not identical. This is useful when one does not know if speed, grain, sharpness etc... will vary with any change or group of changes that have been made in a formula..

Now, that is neither good nor bad, unless one is trying to run comparative tests. The fact remains that these developers differ for some reason and will probably not yield identical results in some way. It may affect your evaluation of a given film/developer combination.

You may argue back and forth, but my opinion is that Kodak would not publish formulas this way with the possible introduction of varying results from publication to publication. So, I offer this as my opinion into the middle of this discussion, for you to consider.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

So which is right, well to find out you need to know exactly how many grains are in a gram, and make sure that your dealing with the right liquid measure for the final developer.

One grain is actually 64.79891 milligrams, as defined by SI, so 45 grains would be 2,915.95095mg or 2.91595095 g so both versions are actually wrong. 3,0g would be 46.297075059 grains.

However if you assume that the grain measurement was in US liquid quarts (there are 1.0566882094 quarts in a Litre), and the grams in Litres then 3.0g would be 43.813373375 grains, still wrong, now lets use the 3.1g version it would be 47.840310894 grains per Litre or 45.265513689 grains per US quart. You could round that off to 45 and be close enough.

There are lots of places where a conversion could go wrong, especially if you were doing the math by hand and didn't keep all the decimal places.

Thanks Paul for reinforcing what I just said.

These formulas are wrong due to math and transcription errors. The funny thing is that the Metric values vary while the English values stay relaitvely constant but more in error when compared as you did above and as I did.

Since the formulas were developed using the Metric system, then something is really awry! This appears with many many formulas in many texts.

PE

 

[billtroop]

>Since the formulas were developed using the Metric system, then something is really awry! This appears with many many formulas in many texts.

I'd like to make clear something that Ian can't seem to get his head around: these versions are due to generations of technical writers goofing up. The chemists would not be closely involved.

>Since the formulas were developed using the Metric system, then something is really awry! This appears with many many texts.

That is true and, as you know Ron, a chemist has to have a very good reason indeed to add decimal places - - especially for environments where accuracy to within fractions of a gram were scarce on the ground. I would guess that it was the desire to provide avoirdupois users with practical, neat, units which started the process of distorting this developer.

It is shocking that Crabtree allowed the mistake into Photographic Chemicals and Solutions, but then, as we know, there were hundreds of similar errors in that 'standard' text. I must add that though Crabtree's reputation was very great, both Henn and Russell considered his celebrity undeserved.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Bill, Ian;

I'll tell you how decimals get added.

The original formula may specify 5 g/l of X in a fresh mix. It goes to the plant and they make the formula and find a 10% loss or a 10% variation in sensitometric result after the first day but it is ok after that, so they play with it to get the right (R&D) result. Lets say it takes 5.1 grams of X to make the formula rock stable but it is a little high on the first day. This might represent what is seen with D-76 in actual practice AAMOF.

This can also be seen in formulas like D23 and DK60. It can be seen in D76R, and in a number of other places where the English and Metric formulas both use fractions in compounding the developers. Formulas that use fractions of units in both English and Metric seem to me to be more likely to be right. IDK but that is another opinion.

PE

 

[gainer]

And when you are all done arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and calling one another names, how do you know who is right, if anyone?

The information about amounts of ingredients in the subject of a patent is not to be taken as absolutely precise unless only that precise value will make the system work to produce the claimed function. Otherwise, anyone could concoct a product that was a milligram off without violating the patent.

In the engineering and scientific world where I earned my living and got most of my education, a number that was specified as, say, 3 meant "greater than 2.5 and less than 3.5." If it was written 3.0 it meant "greater than 2.95 and less than 3.05." 3.1 means "greater than 3.05 and less than 3.15" and so on. If you wanted greater than 3.1 and less than 3.2 you specified 3.15.
If it is important to have 3.1 grams of Metol to the milligram, you should specify 3.100. I have a 1941 War Department Technical Manual of Basic Photography that specifies 106 grains of Metol per gallon for a developer that is obviously to do the job of D-76. That works out to 1.82 grams per liter. Would that work as well as 2.0?

We started out with Windisch. My money is on the lesser amount of sulfite, simply because I think he knew the value of the proportional staining of catechol and the effect of sulfite on that stain.

 

[Ian Grant]

Bill, Ian;

I'll tell you how decimals get added.

The original formula may specify 5 g/l of X in a fresh mix. It goes to the plant and they make the formula and find a 10% loss or a 10% variation in sensitometric result after the first day but it is ok after that, so they play with it to get the right (R&D) result. Lets say it takes 5.1 grams of X to make the formula rock stable but it is a little high on the first day. This might represent what is seen with D-76 in actual practice AAMOF.

This can also be seen in formulas like D23 and DK60. It can be seen in D76R, and in a number of other places where the English and Metric formulas both use fractions in compounding the developers. Formulas that use fractions of units in both English and Metric seem to me to be more likely to be right. IDK but that is another opinion.

PE

Ron's explanations are likely to be close to the mark and also match what I've said many times in the thread, so the implication is that the early versions of the Formulae were right. Ron has at no stage said or implied that they would be wrong.

I should add Bill that like Ron I have a scientific background, have worked as a photographic chemist, and later ran an analytical laboratory for a number of years.

There's an important issue raised by Ron's comments that we haven't considered and that's the purity of the chemicals being used.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned twice that someone in an entirely separate and unrelated post had stated that he thought Kodak didn't begin selling Chemistry until around 1938. It's quite probable that the advent of Kodachrome and other colour processes meant far tighter tolerances where needed in the purity of photo chemicals, in fact there were ANSI & BS (now ISO) standards set after WWII for the minimum purity of photo grade chemicals. Kodak state in their Harrow Research Formulary that "Elon" is a specially purified form of monoethyl paraminophenol (Metol), and some other contemporary manufacturers specify using their grade of photochemistry, so perhaps this was a major issue in the late 30's and 40's.

So taking these factors into account Ron's comments make even more sense.

That still doesn't make the early original published versions of D61a, D72, D156 "Velox", D163, D166 etc etc wrong, just the opposite, they use Kodak "Elon" so the purity of chemicals had already been improved by the early 40's when all these formulae were published and, and these may have been older unpublihed formulae that had themselves been revised to reflect these changes.

All formulae like D23/D25 & subsequent new developers etc were devised around or after the time Kodak had begun chemical manufacture so used the higher grade chemicals from the outset.

It is rather a shame and sad that Bill Troop has to constantly try and denigrate the work of other writers, it's easy now in hindsight to criticise Jacabson, Developing, a book first published in 1940 that was already in it's 18th Edition by 1972, particularly when the FDC hasn't even reached a 2nd Edition after 11 years. The FDC had an entirely different agenda to Jacobson, Developing, so direct comparisons aren't valid, it was never written as a book of Formulae.

By the time Bill wrote his contributions to the FDC data, printed formulae and access to people involved was far easier to access, and in addition many important text books that Bill has relied heavily on have only been written since Jacobson began writing.

A final point Bill, Kodak publications in the UK have never included Sodium Carbonate (Monohydrate), they always listed the Crystalline and alternative Anhydrous form. I don't think it was made in that form in the UK, and I've never seen a reference to it in any UK publications or formulae from any company. In the UK Kodak sold "Kodak" Sodium Carbonate as the anhydrous form I have a 1950's Tin ?3.5Kg in my chemical store.

Ian