[pure-silver] Re: stopbath kills fixer
- From: Lloyd Erlick <lloyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:35:46 -0500
jan2505 from Lloyd Erlick,
I 'de-acidified' my darkroom for specific reasons. I don't know if darkroom
myth has any role, and I don't think I'm promulgating, or succumbing to,
any darkroom myths.
One reason I deleted any type of acid in my darkroom processes was smell.
Certain gases (sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide) are very much less
likely to be produced in the darkroom if there is no acid present.
Ventilation is fine, but absence of stink in the first place is even
better. Ventilation works all the better when sulfur dioxide isn't there.
It is not a myth that my personal preference is no sulfur dioxide
whatsoever, because the least whiff of the stuff stops me in my tracks. It
brings out my dark side, and no one likes me. My purpose in talking and
writing about it on my website is not to mythologize but to show anyone
else who hates darkroom stench how to eliminate it, as I have done.
Another reason I suspended use of acid in my darkroom is that I have
noticed my selenium toner behaves much, much better this way. Formerly,
after a few uses, my toner began to produce a very dark precipitate that
eventually made the solution so murky and unpleasant looking that I could
no longer bear to use it. The stuff is expensive, and I use it at quite a
high concentration, so it is expensive. With no acid present, I noticed the
murkiness was vastly reduced. After two years of use, my selenium toner
working solution is still close to water-clear. (I also filter it through
coffee filters; doing this before I deleted acid never quite cleared it.) I
never throw away my toner now, I just keep topping it up. The only loss of
toner I have now is from carry-out on the sheets.
I go on at much greater length in articles on my website. Check under the
'technical' heading in the table of contents. (Entire contents Copyright
Lloyd Erlick 2005, eh?)
regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
voice: 416-686-0326
email: portrait@xxxxxxxxxxxx
net: www.heylloyd.com
________________________________
--
At 05:34 PM 1/24/2005 , you wrote:
>Garry Lewis wrote:
>
>>What I was asking is the effects of adding acid to an alkaline fixer. I
have
>>not found anything specific to 'this' questions.
>>
>>The myths about stopbaths are numerous and popularly persistent to discuss
>>again here. That being not my intent, I will move on to more searching on
my
>>own.
>>
>>
>Gary,
>Can you provide a few of the myths of stops baths. I've never seen any
>before.
>I use an alkaline fixer because I want to avoid acid in the process.
>Since archival materials are 'acid free', it struck me as sensible that
>I just remove a couple of steps in the processs - acidify materials,
>then de-acidify materials.
>I only use an acid stop bath in Lith. I didn't notice a change in my
>results when I stopped using an acid stop-bath.
>
>Thinking faintly about the chemistry & mis-remembering formulae (thanks
>to Lloyd & his document on de-acidifying AA's fixer) strikes me that the
>alkaline fixers and acid fixers have the same root so there shouldn't be
>a big impact in fixing ability. However, the acid fixers have a higher
>propensity to form less soluble products and require HCA and longer
>wash. As a result I expect I'd inadvertently clean my prints less
>effectively if I quietly acidified my alkaline fixer.
>
>Regarding paraphrasing for lists - I rather appreciate it. I find
>searching list archives for information the equivalent for looking for
>needles in a stack of things that declare they are needles, just not
>sharp or made of metal or capable of pulling thread.
>
>Dave
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