Fixing Pyro Based Developers

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Ian-Barber

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I have been reading that Alkaline based fixers such as Ilford Rapid Fix may not be the best fixer for Pyro Based developers due to the staining effect and that others Fixers like TF4 might be a better solution.

Any thoughts?
 
Ilford Rapid Fixer and Hypam are mildly acidic, they are fine with Pyro developers, there's no benefits of using an Alkali based fixer with films. Sandy King has used Ilford RApid Fixer and seen no differences with Pyrocat.

Ian
 
There was a recent thread on pure-silver on film fixing generally. It was noted that acid fixers may degrade the archival lifetime of films, hence alkali would be preferred .

I don't have the citations handy but the list archives are publicly viewable at Freelists.
 
Good to know. I wasn't concerned about longevity, it was more a case of I had read that the staining can be affected when using RapidFix
 
Many of the myths came from PMK, it was said that after fixing you should put the film backinto the spent developera as it increased the staining. Sure it did but rqndomly and was not benidicial.

I use Ilford IT-8 Olive Brown toner sometimes, and these days use Pyrocat hD as the re-developer, I did some tests and it's extremely difficult to destroy the develoment stain.

Ian
 
Alkaline fixers like TF-3 and TF-4 generally have a lot of sulfite and some metaoborate, which raise the pH. But these fixers are not necessary for Pyrocat-HD.

Just use a regular acid stop bath at about 1/2 strength and whatever fixer you have and you should be fine.

Sandy King
"Straight from the horses mouth"
 
Camerashy said:
Alkaline fixers like TF-3 and TF-4 generally have a lot of sulfite and some metaoborate, which raise the pH. But these fixers are not necessary for Pyrocat-HD.

Just use a regular acid stop bath at about 1/2 strength and whatever fixer you have and you should be fine.

Sandy King
"Straight from the horses mouth"
Click to expand...


Sandy King and I discussed this in a thread many years ago, he was using Ilford Rapid Fixer at the time.

Ian
 
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