Would this PC-glycol recipe work?

steelneck · Nov 16, 2009

I have been wasting some time on the subject of mixing my own chemicals, i find it very interesting, though i have not actually done it yet. I found a recipe that i have thought of modifying:
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/VitC/vitc.html
(second table "Stock A")

I am thinking of making it in two stock solutions using glycol instead of water in the PC part. I like the idea of having a stock solution that lasts under long periods, half of my last mix of XTOL i had to throw away since it got old. My B/W-work comes in periods, it can pass a year or so between rolls, and sometimes, on a whim, i get the feel for it and shoot several rolls in a couple of days. I also like the idea to have the same developer for both film and paper, easy to mix just when i happen to need it. And of course also the done-it-myself satisfaction.

So, would this work?

PartA
Propylene glycol 100ml
Ascorbic acid 8g
Phenidone 0.08g
Add glycol to make 250ml

The above mixed hot (note, no water at all).

PartB
Water 180ml
Sodium Hydroxide 6.8g
Borax 24.4g
Add water to make 250ml

Mix 1+1 and dilute in 14 parts of water for film, or 1+1+6 for paper.

If i manage to get my hands on some phenidone (semes hard to find..), how much paper or film can i expect to develop on 1 liter of above working solution? What times could i expect? How would this developer compare to XTOL?

P C Headland · Nov 17, 2009

I can't help with your developer, but ...

You may want to take a look at PC-TEA. An Xtol using friend of mine has switched to PC-TEA, and loves the results. The stock solution lasts a long time. My current bottle is at least 2 years old. It has changed from a light straw to dark ale colour, but still works just the same.

I don't know if it would work for paper though.

Another that you may wish to look into is "(there was a url link here which no longer exists)"

You can get Phenidone from Artcraft.

juan · Nov 17, 2009

Pat Gainer has written here somewhere about mixing PC-TEA in glycol rather than TEA. You add the developer to water and add sodium carbonate. You might search his posts for that information.
juan

steelneck · Nov 17, 2009

Do you know if Artcraft ships overseas? I live in Sweden.

Yes i have seen Instant Mytol, but in my early searches on the net i discarded that since i could not find anyone selling triethanolamine locally. But later i have discovered that the same goes for phenidone, metol, hydroquinone, Glycin, Catechol, Pyrocatechin ... Though a quick search came up with at least two firms in sweden that has phenidone, but one of them do not sell to private persons, the other one i do not know, yet. So, if i have to order anyway (and take all the shipping costs) i could look at other formulas too. But since i have already thought about the above, i still wonder how that would work. It could be that AA do not mix with PG, but that is easy to test since those can be bought locally, and maybe that is possible to get around by mixing the ascorbic and phenidone with a samll amount of some alcohol first?

Are there any other developing agents that teams up well with ascorbic acid and can be found more easily?

CBG · Nov 17, 2009

They should be able to tell you. Write them at: www.artcraftchemicals.com/contact.htm or call at (518) 986-4281.

Alan Johnson · Nov 17, 2009

Rather than do a lot of calculating it may be easier to use the stock solution of PC-Glycol:
www.photosensitive.ca/wp/easy-film-developers
This also has been found to work as a print developer, see post 24 here:
www.apug.org/forums/forum37/40430-sodium-metaborate-borax-lye-3.html
PC-Glycol is a bit grainy as a film developer and there are suggestions in that thread on using borate B solution.

steelneck · Nov 17, 2009

@Alan Johnson: I think i am rather close to what was discussed in your link, Michael only experienced a little longer dev.time with borax instead of metaborate.

Jordan · Nov 17, 2009

The PC-Glycol recipe on my website works "as advertised" and getting 10 g of ascorbic acid to dissolve in 100 ml of hot propylene glycol is not too difficult. That said, "drugstore chemistry" will only get you so far in B&W photography and at some point you're going to have to find a source of metol or phenidone if you want to mix developers.

steelneck · Nov 17, 2009

@Jordan: Yea, like Coffee developer..

Today i visited my local shop selling paint and such (i do not find the correct English word), a bit of bad timing from my side since they had some hectic time with a lot of customers in the shop, but it looks like they are able to get me what i want from some of the bigger firms, i just have to drop in at another time. I may have a try with your PC-glycol.

P C Headland · Nov 18, 2009

Artcraft do ship overseas - at least, they are happy to send powders to New Zealand, which is about as overseas as you can get

steelneck · Nov 18, 2009

P C Headland said:
Artcraft do ship overseas - at least, they are happy to send powders to New Zealand, which is about as overseas as you can get

Good to know, though i hope i can buy locally, cash over the disk. In the paranoid days of today with sureveillance and registration of just about anything, i am a bit reluctant to order anything that can be interpreted as suspicious by some bureaucrat desk-taliban that cannot imagine a legitimate photointerest.

BobNewYork · Nov 18, 2009

steelneck said:
Good to know, though i hope i can buy locally, cash over the disk. In the paranoid days of today with sureveillance and registration of just about anything, i am a bit reluctant to order anything that can be interpreted as suspicious by some bureaucrat desk-taliban that cannot imagine a legitimate photointerest.

Funny you should say that. I'm always questioning how anything I purchase online or which website I access could be interpreted on the asumption it's being monitored. I've never lived like this before. As a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, (well I have been known to speed once in a while ) it really sucks.

Bob H

steelneck · Nov 18, 2009

BobNewYork said:
... I'm always questioning how anything I purchase online or which website I access could be interpreted on the assumption it's being monitored. I've never lived like this before.

Sorry for going OT, but this gets me going.. Yes that is how surveillance affects ordinary law abiding people. That is why we in the west saw ordinary people behind the iron curtain as gray and dull, they where just trying to live their life "under the radar" and avoid paranoid suspicion.

We start to think about how some unknown person with power and authority can interpret our acts and what we say or do. It acts like a loss of privacy. This has grave long term cons. on the democracy since it affects the free development of opinions, has a silencing effect and that is one of the reasons behind article 11, 12 and 19 in the universal declaration of human rights. The right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. The right to not be subjected to arbitrary interference in privacy, family, home or correspondence. The right to freedom of opinion and expression including freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Those who wrote the UDHR did know what they where doing, they had experience back then and did know how important it is, i almost start to cry every time i read or cite some lines from it.

All this gets affected in a negative way when government agencies start to monitor warrantless without a relevant description of suspicion against someone. A suspicion based on evidence must come before surveillance of people, not the other way around with mass surveillance maybe leading to suspicion.

BobNewYork · Nov 18, 2009

steelneck said:
Sorry for going OT, but this gets me going.. Yes that is how surveillance affects ordinary law abiding people. That is why we in the west saw ordinary people behind the iron curtain as gray and dull, they where just trying to live their life "under the radar" and avoid paranoid suspicion.

We start to think about how some unknown person with power and authority can interpret our acts and what we say or do. It acts like a loss of privacy. This has grave long term cons. on the democracy since it affects the free development of opinions, has a silencing effect and that is one of the reasons behind article 11, 12 and 19 in the universal declaration of human rights. The right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. The right to not be subjected to arbitrary interference in privacy, family, home or correspondence. The right to freedom of opinion and expression including freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Those who wrote the UDHR did know what they where doing, they had experience back then and did know how important it is, i almost start to cry every time i read or cite some lines from it.

All this gets affected in a negative way when government agencies start to monitor warrantless without a relevant description of suspicion against someone. A suspicion based on evidence must come before surveillance of people, not the other way around with mass surveillance maybe leading to suspicion.

You're preaching to the choir here. Wrong thread, I guess.

Bob H

steelneck · Nov 22, 2009

Now i have found that it will not work, and why.

The Part B solution cannot hold that much borax, a borax solution in water will become saturated around 24g per liter. So, the part B has to be mixed in 1000ml water. Final working solution/dilution will thus become 1+4+10 and 1+4+2 for paper, if i did the calculating right.

But when looking around on various formulas, i see that some have ratio of 1:100 phenidone/ascorbic and some has around 1:40, that is quite a difference. I guess that depends on the alkalis and if it thought as one-shot or not. Right?

steelneck · Nov 23, 2009

But on second thought, sodium hydroxide and borax together will form metaborate.. Will the 6.8g hydroxide make 24g borax solve in 250ml water? What i have read metaborate will become saturated around 30% by weight at 20 C. Hmmm.. Can you tell that i am not much of a chemist ;-)

Would this PC-glycol recipe work?

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