"XTOL clone" for Europeans

I know I'm a little late to the party, but in your original post, you lost me right here:

Jockos said:

...I'll make caffenol for the medium speed ones (ISO 100), but since it's pretty dark up here in Scandinavia, I'm going to need a developer that can give box speed as well.

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Are you saying that Caffenol is *not* giving you box speed?

I fully understand support, but supporting kodak or ilford or foma or adox mean i have to buy from dealers that have insane profit margins... i can make 5 liters of fixer for a bit over 1 euro... or 5 liter of d-76 or x-tol for around 4 euro... commercial values are xxxxx times that...

Jockos said:

Hi all,

I'd like to mix my own ascorbate developer for 400ISO films. I'll make caffenol for the medium speed ones (ISO 100), but since it's pretty dark up here in Scandinavia, I'm going to need a developer that can give box speed as well.

I know there are several XTOL-like developers one can make at home, and I'm wondering which one's good for Europeans, considering restrictions on chemicals.

What does other people around here use?
What's better for me, considering I've got the ingredients for caffenol C H available already (sodium carbonate, ascorbate, KBr)?


I know there is a lot of emotion involved in developers, but I hope we can keep the discussion civilized and focused on non commercial developers and Europe.

Thanks!

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I would say MOCON or Instant Mytol concentrate (in glycol) as they can be kept in the freezer. I found that it was simpler to dissolve the chemicals for MOCON than Instant Mytol.
For chemicals: PGW.se, has a shop in Stockholm, for Glycol as its used in swedish snuff. I got a lot of the chemicals from chemical firms at eBay.de and eBay.co.uk (S3 Chemicals in germany). The more photocentric chemicals I bought from Suvatlar.

/Johan

Jockos said:

but the sodium sulfite seems to be quite expensive

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http://keten.com.pl/reagents-4/ That is Europe all right.
1 kg sodium sulfite anhydrous 39.00 zl = approx 9.27 € You call that expensive?

An Xtol clone, eh? This may come into its own shortly for the Europeans, depending on where we end up with DT's trade war. Will the U.K. be exempt from such a war? It may depend on whether the current U.K. Prime Minister lets him hold her hand again when they emerge for the Press and cameras at their next meeting

pentaxuser

As X-Tol is now marketed by a UK company, and manufactured by a German one (I think), who knows!

john_s said:

It's a bit complicated. I spend a total of about an hour per year making up a couple of batches of developer. I do it because where I live lots of products that I used to use have become unavailable. There are expensive alternatives, but mixing my own gives me some independence.

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As you are in Melbourne, you can try Vanbar's for bulk sodium sulfite. I've bought mine there in the past and found the more I bought, the cheaper it became by unit cost. See their web site for prices.

Now, I may have misread or misunderstood your post - do you mix all your developers once a year? If so, are you sure this is the right way to go? Why do you prefer to mix at one time and keep it for up to a year? To me this is false economy, as with the temperature variations in the Australian climate, I've found some if not all of it will go bad before I use it all, and I then have to throw it out.

Other than this, mixing your own is definitely the way. As I've said before in this forum, you can easily whip up a batch of Thornton's two-bath or Beutler's, which along with (home brewed) Kodak D76 have long been my stand-by soups.

Alan Johnson said:

I have made up ,nearly, the real Xtol formula given in the patent and in the Film Developing Cookbook. However I don't think it is possible to buy DTPA in Europe so it's not possible to mix the exact formula.

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The formula in the patent is NOT Xtol but a SIMILAR ascorbate one. Companies seldom disclose such things and actually obfuscate things in patents. Quantities may vary from the actual product and rare chemical names be used, ...