Hiya,
I've been reading about other alt processes, the ones that do better with toning, and wondering if I really need to go to the hassle of trying to get these expensive gold/platinum/whatever chemicals to make my own toner or if I could use an off-the-shelf gold toner instead? I'm looking at van dyke process or some of the other silver-iron processes.

I'm using Tetenal Gold toner with POP and vandyke. Works just great.

It's still expensive though, but it saves you the bother of mixing very expensive raw chemicals and risking doing something stupid. ;)

It is far less expensive to make your own gold toner than to buy the kits. Although the price of gold chloride is not cheap, the amount used is very small.

I'm not sure if I could even get it in the UK so I'd have to factor in the cost of shipping it from B&H or the like.