Old Paper, Old Chemistry

[Camerashy]

Interesting if you have Old chemicals and paper. You can improve how your paper behaves by adding incremental amounts of a benzotriazole solution to your paper developer or by bleaching the finished print.
Does paper developer lend itself to replenishment?

 

[jhotopf]

Great to see Derek here. He's on a couple of my discords.

 

[thronobulax]

Does paper developer lend itself to replenishment?

Not really but it is possible to make paper developer with a very long shelf/use life and high capacity.

If you can find a source of raw chemicals, and particularly Glycin, you can make your own Ansco 130 - the formula is well known. The working solution at 1+1 will handle about 50 8x10s/liter and lasts for months when stored in a glass bottle. I used to use Kodak Dektol at 1+2 and throw it out each session, until I discovered the Ansco 130 alternative. Now I make up new working strength developer every 2-3 months (and I print a lot).

 

[Ian Grant]

Does paper developer lend itself to replenishment?

In a home darkroom in theory you could replenish developer and also fixer, in practice though it's not done.

On another Forum some say Ilford ID-78, the warm-tone developer I use, has a long life, a few days once mixed, stored in a bottle between sessions. In practice that's not what I've observed finding the results after a day are poorer. However as I almost exclusively use FB papers the volume of developer left at the end of a session has greatly reduced due to the paper base absorption & carry over.

With RC papers it's different, there's just a little carry over, and in addition many RC papers have a developer accelerator, this may help with a used or older developer solution. It's also why RC papers develop faster and generally have shorter suggested development times.

Ilford make RT developers & fixer for Roller Transport machines, these generally use top-up replenishment.

The most economic way of fixing, particularly with FB paper, is two bath fixing.

Ian

 

[HowLarge]

Nova dip tanks advise some replenish regime , I have never used them , but it makes sense with the right developer
and the Xtol replenish regime seems to work for those who use it.
Ian is the expert here , I think it depends on your volume and frequency of use and the note about FB paper being a sponge is
important if you are new to it otherwise you could be looking for a pinhole in your tray..

 

[Camerashy]

I've found that an alkaline fix has a long shelf life , I use separate bottles of fix for film and paper.

 

[thronobulax]

I've found that an alkaline fix has a long shelf life , I use separate bottles of fix for film and paper.

That's a wise move. I would point out that if you are going into an alkaline paper fixed, you want to avoid an acid stop bad, or at least rinse the print when moving from stop to fix. You don't want to carry the acidity of the stop bath into the alkalinity of the fixer.