XTOL : My way to mix, store, test and use.

nworth · Sep 4, 2005

I understand that iron is often the culprit in Xtol deterioration. Iron ions are common in tap water. The easy way to avoid them is to use distilled or deionized water. Many common home water purifiers have a deionizing function that will work. It may also be possible to sequester them. I understand that succinate works; EDTA-Na may work.

nworth · Sep 4, 2005

Why worry about ounce sizes. 250, 125, and 65 ml bottles should work fine, although they leave a bit of air space. You can probably get away with a bit more dilution to avoid that, if you need to.

dancqu · Sep 4, 2005

nworth said:
Why worry about ounce sizes. 250, 125, and 65 ml bottles
should work fine, although they leave a bit of air space.
You can probably get away with a bit more dilution to
avoid that, if you need to.

Such is the case with Boston Rounds; amber at least and
likely the clear. Although sold by the ounce they do hold
fractions of a liter.

If needed I top up leaving space for the cork within the
screw cap of both the Polyseal and Polycone caps. My
one ounce are off the liter fraction 1/32; not
31.25ml but 34ml. Dan

srs5694 · Sep 4, 2005

nworth said:
I understand that iron is often the culprit in Xtol deterioration. Iron ions are common in tap water. The easy way to avoid them is to use distilled or deionized water. Many common home water purifiers have a deionizing function that will work. It may also be possible to sequester them. I understand that succinate works; EDTA-Na may work.

This is basically the reasoning Ryuji Suzuki presents in one of his Web pages. He claims that salicylates work well to solve the problem, and this is the approach he uses in his DS-10 and DS-12 developers. I don't know if adding salicylic acid to regular XTOL would have any beneficial effects. FWIW, XTOL already uses a preservative that's related to EDTA.

bjorke · Sep 4, 2005

I'm confused about the comments about keeping Xtol for a year and also the use of it as a one-shot developer...

I run Xtol 1+1 and a 5-liter package would never last a year! That's only enough for about 30 rolls of 35mm or 20 rolls of 120/220. Maybe a month or two

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 4, 2005

srs5694 said:
This is basically the reasoning Ryuji Suzuki presents in one of his Web pages. He claims that salicylates work well to solve the problem, and this is the approach he uses in his DS-10 and DS-12 developers. I don't know if adding salicylic acid to regular XTOL would have any beneficial effects. FWIW, XTOL already uses a preservative that's related to EDTA.

EDTA is a sequestrant, not really a preservative.

dancqu · Sep 4, 2005

Tom Hoskinson said:
EDTA is a sequestrant, not really a preservative.

EDTA does not scavenge for oxygen as does sulfite and,
even more so, ascorbate. It is though a weak diprotic acid
and the sodium salt will be alkaline in solution. Just as
well as it is in alkaline solutions that it does complex.

Wimberley's WD2D + contains EDTA but his previous WD2D
did not. He recommends using using only distilled water with
both developers. So why the EDTA? Perhaps it is included to
modify and/or buffer the ph. After all it is a carbonated
pyro developer.

BTW, his WD2D formula is public domain but not the +. Dan

hortense · Sep 4, 2005

Fhovie - You mention " ...using a big plastic spoon, and crack the small cacked spots in the pail bottom." A fellow photographer friend found (as I did) that sometimes there would be bright spots on the neg after development. Appartently this was because very small grains of undisolved Xtol was present. The solution is to let it stand over night. This will completely disolve all of the the Xtol. BTW, I use a drill with a stainless steel paint mixer.

Nicole · Sep 4, 2005

I have a magnetic mixer which is one of my favourite gadgets at present and use coffee filters to filter ( thx clogz ) the made up full strength Xtol. It's just getting harder to buy for me.

fhovie · Sep 4, 2005

hortense said:
Fhovie - You mention " ...using a big plastic spoon, and crack the small cacked spots in the pail bottom." A fellow photographer friend found (as I did) that sometimes there would be bright spots on the neg after development. Appartently this was because very small grains of undisolved Xtol was present. The solution is to let it stand over night. This will completely disolve all of the the Xtol. BTW, I use a drill with a stainless steel paint mixer.

Not me - I heat the water up to 125F put it in an oversize bottle - add the chemicals and shake like crazy. This always worked for me when I made Nitro. - just kidding about the nitro part. I make Mytol from scratch and don't have trouble with any of the chemicals disolving. I have never purchased XTOL.

XTOL : My way to mix, store, test and use.

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