coffee and soda crystals

[Murray Kelly]

Ray, go down to the local pool shop, as I did, and buy a big 5L container of chlorine lowering compound. It's sodium thiosulphate not the ammonium, unfortunately. They got it in in a few days.

They wanted to know why I needed so much - they thought there'd be enoungh to treat all the pools in Qld.

So, there you go, another source of photo supplies! :-)

Murray
Brisbane, Oz

g'day all, great info, thnx

so, we can replace developer, both film and paper, with coffee and washing soda, can we replace fixer with a common household product?

Ray

[Toffle]

Thanks all. Has anyone tried to use coffee and soda crystals as a paper developer for lith prints? If so, please can I have a recipe...I'm using Fomatone FB warmtone paper and looking for a colder effect than that resulting from using LD20 paper developer, perhaps Dektol paper developer added too....thank you

I have attempted "lith-type" prints with this formula. Tim Rudman tells me that Caffenol does not promote infectious development, though. Caffenol does not work very well with the over-exposure/inspection development technique. I guess, rather than lith printing, you would call Caffenol a staining developer. The results are still quite effective IMHO.

Cheers,

[Murray@uptowngallery]

I didn't like the 2# prices for 'Chlor-Out' sodium thiosulfate, so I kept calling pool places until I got a distributor. They happily ordered me a 25# pail despite being a retail customer...it was cheap too...

[Murray Kelly]

Actually it was pretty cheap compared to having it sent a thousand miles from Melbourne. It was 5 Kg in fact = 11#. I just filled the spaces between the big crystals with water. As it gets down I will see how much isn't disolved (if any) and top it up accordingly.

Next I went to Bunnings hardware garden section and got some ammonium sulphate and just spoon some into the fixer. Just think of it as a mix of ammoniun thiosulphate and sodium sulphate. The film doesn't know any better. Maybe a bit slower than the ATS alone but heaps faster than the STS.

Murray (Down Under)

I didn't like the 2# prices for 'Chlor-Out' sodium thiosulfate, so I kept calling pool places until I got a distributor. They happily ordered me a 25# pail despite being a retail customer...it was cheap too...

[ntenny]

I'm not so sure coffee developer is any safer than catechol after it's been treated with lye, which I cannot buy at any local store.

Lye? I didn't know anyone had coffee developer recipes with lye. I'm using coffee, washing soda, and ascorbic acid (in proportions that I think originally came from Donald Qualls)---the results are OK, albeit pretty grainy with most films, and I'm pretty confident in the low toxicity of the soup. You *could* ingest enough sodium carbonate to be a problem, but it's hard to see why or how anyone *would*.

The low-contrast "Caffenol LC+C" version really shines, IMHO. (I've been using it with Adox ORT 25.)

-NT

[Ray Heath]

whoa, backup Murray

i must admit i'm no techno/chemo junky

what you posted will make usable fixer?

Ray

[Murray Kelly]

Yup. Folk add ammonium chloride to plain hypo to get the NH4 ions in there - I just used another salt - the sulphate - knowing that NaSO4 is often used to just slow down development on occasion.
Works OK for me! :-)

Murray

whoa, backup Murray

i must admit i'm no techno/chemo junky

what you posted will make usable fixer?

Ray

[Murray Kelly]

My good lady wife tells me we have coffee beans on the tree out back. If I strip off the flesh, then dry out the husks, and split the beans to get the kernels I will have the means to test whether the unroasted product will perform better than 'el cheapo' instant coffee.

Is it possible that in years to come I willl wish I'd experimented more with raw beans than sticking to plain ol' phenidone/metol/pyro ?. :-)

I think not.
Murray

[gainer]

Lye? I didn't know anyone had coffee developer recipes with lye. I'm using coffee, washing soda, and ascorbic acid (in proportions that I think originally came from Donald Qualls)---the results are OK, albeit pretty grainy with most films, and I'm pretty confident in the low toxicity of the soup. You *could* ingest enough sodium carbonate to be a problem, but it's hard to see why or how anyone *would*.

The low-contrast "Caffenol LC+C" version really shines, IMHO. (I've been using it with Adox ORT 25.)

-NT

I must have been thinking about Tylenol. Anyway, I was not being very serious. However, anyone interested in a litho developer should consider using lye. Hydroquinone requires lye or a concoction of sulfite and acetone that generates very high pH, IIRC.

I have drunk some coffee that seemed to have been seasoned with lye. At least, some have called it "paint remover".

[Murray@uptowngallery]

I was looking for a local source of ammonium chloride. Apparently one can buy it in blocks for solder flux, or as a feed additive for castrated goats suffering from urinary calculus.

Local goat farmers must have thought I was nuts. One just takes his to a vet and the other apparently has breeders.

I guess that is something I'll have to order from PF.