[pure-silver] Re: Free Kodak Film

It may not only be a problem with the user's water supply.  As Ryuji
pointed out, iron is a common contaminate of many photo chemicals
including sodium sulfite.

Jerry

-----Original Message-----
From: pure-silver-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:pure-silver-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Knoppow
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 2:38 PM
To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Free Kodak Film



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Koch, Gerald" <gkoch02@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 11:13 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Free Kodak Film


It seems that Kodak solved the Xtol problem when they 
eliminated the 1
liter package.  Now that they have farmed out their chemical 
production
I wonder how things will be.

Jerry

   The problem with the one liter size was a packaging 
problem. Kodak approached it by increasing the amount of 
sulfite contained in the small packet. It didn't work. Kodak 
has since changed the method of packing they use for powder 
chemistry, both material and method of sealing. However, the 
1 liter size of Xtol was not brought back.
   The problem generally attributed to Xtol is a short life 
sudden failure. I've experienced this. The developer works 
when mixed but may be almost inactive in a couple of weeks 
without showing any other sign or symptom of a change. This 
has been reported often enough for me to believe it is 
fairly common although Kodak denies this. A chemist, Ryuji 
Suzuki, who has payed some attention to this problem thinks 
it may have to do with Iron in certain forms in the water. 
He has devised a formula similar to Xtol that does not seem 
to suffer from the problem. Unfortunately, Kodak no longer 
has a real research laboratory but, rather, farms out this 
work, so there does not appear to be much continuity. I 
doub't they will ever solve the problem because they 
consider B&W chemical photography to be a niche market and 
one which is continuing to shrink (not sure its still 
shrinking).
    Xtol is very good developer... When it works, but is not 
quite reliable.
    For the most part I stick to D-76 1:1 for general work 
and Microdol-X or Ilford Perceptol for very fine grain work. 
Too bad.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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