The "Chamlees" are Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee, and while I like to give credit to Paula for so many things (someday they will say, Michael A. Smith, Michael A. Smith . . . wasn't he Paula Chamlee's husband?), the Amidol formula I developed after a great deal of trial and error is mine alone.
Water 750 cc Sodium sulfite 30 grams Citric Acid 3 grams Pot. Bromide 3 cc (10% solution) Amidol 8 grams Water to make 1000 cc For three liters the proportions of the Pot. Bromide and the Amidol change Water 2500 cc Sodium Sulfite 90 grams Citric Acid 9 grams Pot. bromide 12 cc Amidol 20 gramsPaula and I have compared our "black" Amidol with new light gray Amidol--have printed the same negative developed in one tray and then immediately did it again in another tray--and have found no difference between the prints.
A long time ago the Photographers Formulary had some "black " Amidol. They thought it was no good and we purchased at a great discount. It worked perfectly. Now they are selling the very black "Chinese" Amidol. It stains everything, needs straining a couple of times, some report it stains the prints a pink or yellow color (I forget which) until the print is well washed. We find no difference in the final result. We purchased more than we needed and are selling it off for little more than we paid for it and for substantially less than the Formularly sells it for. It has a Formularly label on it. If anyone is interested, please inquire.
One other thing: When printing on silver chloride paper do not use Rapid Fix. It does give a pink color to the prints. We use pain Sodium Thiosulfate with 15 grams of Sodium Bisulfite added per half gallon.
Michael A. Smith
----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Nelson To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 2:51 PM Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Amidol and oxidizationI'm sure I never added any citric and the activity dropped to practically 0 after X amount of time. I distinctly remember looking at pale under-developed prints in the tray and realizing it was time for the next batch of dev. to be madeI think I said acetic acid a couple of times. Of course it was citric acid I meant. Just hardening of the brain I guess. Amidol is known for dying in a relativly short time. It usually does not discolor as, say, Dektol, does so there is not much warning, it just gets weak. One would have to mix a tray full and then mix another a few hours later and compare the two for developing time and Dmax. I am a little sceptacle about the activity of Amidol which has turned black. Fresh Amidol is slightly gray. Again, one would have to make a direct comparison. It would be interesting to run these experiments because the results would lay the controverseys. Again, perhaps the Chamlees have already done this.-- Richard Knoppow Los Angeles, CA, USA dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx =============================================================================================================To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
