Would these be good for mixing Diafine?

philipus · Jun 9, 2015

Hello everybody

I have read that many people use big brown glass bottles for Diafine but no matter where I look here in the Netherlands and Europe I can't find any. I have, however, found these 5-litre "jerry cans". Would they work for mixing and keeping the A and B solutions?

I will put the working solutions in 1-litre bottles (possibly glass).

Thanks very much in advance
Philip

David Allen · Jun 9, 2015

Here in Germany you can buy the brown glass bottles very easily at any chemist.

When I did a project in Den Haag in 2002, I also purchased brown chemical bottles in the local chemist - all of the photo shops in Amsterdam and Den Haag had no idea what I was asking for but the chemists knew straight away that I wanted dark brown ribbed (the ribbing is to let blind people know that they are dangerous) glass containers to store chemicals and protect them against the light.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

Rudeofus · Jun 9, 2015

Instead of paying such much money for empty canisters, you could get 5l canisters with deionized water for about the same money. But I agree with David, getting brown glass bottles with the right size from a pharmacy would be even better (and cheaper, too). Please don't tell me you need 5l Diafine, yes?

philipus · Jun 9, 2015

Thank you for the replies.

I will actually drive to Germany this coming weekend so I'll have to pass by a pharmacy and see what they have. Thanks for the suggestion David.

Rudeofus, about 5L - I'm not sure I understand. The solutions are a gallon each I believe. I guess the jerry cans I found would be a bit bigger and the air in them might be detrimental to the solutions but I haven't found other options yet. They're not that expensive, the price is for 4pcs.

br
Philip

gone · Jun 9, 2015

The colour or tint of the glass is not important if you are storing them under the counters like most people where light isn't getting to them. Then clear is fine. I prefer plastic because you can squeeze it to keep the air out, which is your real issue. All of my chemical mixing is done in a dedicated plastic mop bucket from the Dollar Tree that I keep scrupulously clean and use only for that. It even has a pour lip on it, which makes pouring into the storage containers easy.

For what its worth, my life got a LOT better since I started filtering everything that goes into containers w/ a funnel and a paper coffee filter. You have to put some marbles in the funnel, or clean, stones/rocks, to avoid the paper filter from collapsing when you pour your chemicals in.

Rudeofus · Jun 9, 2015

philipus said:
Rudeofus, about 5L - I'm not sure I understand. The solutions are a gallon each I believe. I guess the jerry cans I found would be a bit bigger and the air in them might be detrimental to the solutions but I haven't found other options yet. They're not that expensive, the price is for 4pcs.

Wow, you're right indeed. One gallon it is, then. In this case you're best off with 5l canisters of deionized water. I don't expect you to pay much more than 1,50 Euro per (full) canister, and you can use the water for mixing the developer if you don't have better applications for it.

philipus · Jun 9, 2015

I would be having the developer in a cabinet of sorts where it is dark so I guess I could go for plastic. Thanks for the suggestion about filtering, too. I am wondering how much of a problem the air will cause as level of the solutions (esp A, I believe) decreases. I mean one can only squeeze a bottle so much.

1,50EUR is a really good deal. The online sellers here in NL that I have finally manage to locate charge 5-6EUR for 5L :confused:

Rudeofus · Jun 9, 2015

You don't mail order deionized water unless you want to pay for shipping of 5 kg for something worth below 1,50 Euros ... there has to be some drug store (no pun intended) near you which carries cheap 5l canisters of deionized water for ironing and the like.

philipus · Jun 9, 2015

Rudeofus said:
You don't mail order deionized water unless you want to pay for shipping of 5 kg for something worth below 1,50 Euros ... there has to be some drug store (no pun intended) near you which carries cheap 5l canisters of deionized water for ironing and the like.

I fully agree, it's a stupid thing to do. I would need the container anyway though, and if I were to find glass bottles I would need the water so I'm out of luck whatever I do

Gerald C Koch · Jun 9, 2015

The jerry cans are probably made of polyethylene which is a very poor choice for developers. This plastic permits too much oxygen to reach the solution. A better choice is glass or PET bottles.

philipus · Jun 9, 2015

Gerald C Koch said:
The jerry cans are probably made of polyethylene which is a very poor choice for developers. This plastic permits too much oxygen to reach the solution. A better choice is glass or PET bottles.

Ah i see. You're right, they are polyethylene actually. Thank you for drawing my attention to this.

Gerald C Koch · Jun 9, 2015

I should add that polyethylene is good for storing fixer. Curious happenstance, what plastics are suitable for developers are not good for fixers and what are not good for developers are good for fixers and other solutions.

drmoss_ca · Jun 10, 2015

A note of caution - I once used 1 gallon water containers for Diafine and kept them in a cupboard under a sink. The solution eventually ate through the flimsy plastic and corroded a water pipe leading to water dripping through the basement ceiling! Now I use thick brown plastic Datatainers which I think I got from Freestyle.

Trask · Jun 11, 2015

Here in Paris at a couple of photo stores I can buy one liter and two liter plastic bottles with very thick walls, absolutely lightproof, totally inflexible, with a somewhat large mouth and a very good and effective cap. The walls are so thick that I don't think they'd breathe through the walls as some plastic bottles do. So some good bottles are out there.

Rudeofus · Jun 12, 2015

The crazy thing is that Diafine yields a gallon, so even two liter bottles won't hold the complete amount. I wonder whether one can mix the bath as concentrates that fit 1l or 2l bottles. There are (there was a url link here which no longer exists) floating around which suggest you can take a gallon kit and mix bath A into 1l and bath B into 2l, still better than these 5l canisters.

Paul Verizzo · Jun 12, 2015

If your mixed chemicals are stored in the dark, no special bottles needed, as noted.

Plastic bottles are mostly PET or PE. Both are quite vapor porous, which is why there are plenty of disaster stories around when used for developers. But there is a readily available, cheap, fast way to make them vapor impermeable: spray lacquer. I know this from my extensive research in looking at moisture barriers for dye inkjet prints. In fact, that cellophane food wrap is not a good moisture barrier, they put a bit of lacquer on it to make it so.

Find the thickest bottles you can, give them a couple of coats of lacquer and you've done about all that you can do. Look for sparkling bottled water bottles. BTW, the collapsible bottles are the worst besides those paper thin PET water bottles.

philipus · Jul 5, 2015

Hello again,

Just for my own sanity, the "gallon" used on the Diafine instrux is the US gallon, right (not the UK Imperial variety)?

Thank you again
Philip

Would these be good for mixing Diafine?

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