Uranium toning: special precautions for Uranyl Nitrate and other questions

[Jeff Bannow]

I've been looking at that as well. Certainly doesn't look cheap though. Let us know if you succeed in purchasing the uranium.

[tim_walls]

Fascinating stuff! TAAB in the UK sell it; it appears to be intended for staining electron microscopy tissue samples - so clearly there's at least one non-bonkers civilian use. In which case maybe a local university department (biology or biochem I guess) might be able to help you aquire some (or maybe not in this day and age, but they may at least be able to put you in touch with a supplier.)

[JBrunner]

http://www.apug.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=27176

[Vaughn]

Bostick and Sullivan had some of the stuff...don't know if they still do. But at the time it was pick-up only because it was impossible for them to ship it.

vaughn

[Kino]

Uranium Nitrate was used extensively in tinting and toning of silent motion pictures. I remember seeing a picture of a man standing next to a 1 gallon jug of the stuff, as he pulled a rack out of the toner bath. He wasn't wearing gloves or an apron. He looked ghastly.

When historians went back in the 1940's to try to interview lab techs from major motion picture labs of the silent era, they could not locate anyone who tinted and toned prints for distribution; they had all died of cancer or other mysterious diseases.

Now, they were less than careful with the chemicals, and who's to say if the Uranium Nitrate, or the Mercury or the Cyanide got to them first, but it is a sobering thing to contemplate.

Anything else that will do the same job and is less toxic?

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've seen very few uranium prints that I thought were interesting enough to justify dealing with uranium. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way, because I recall a kind of tongue-in-cheek list of something like "50 Rules" for photography by Brooks Jensen that included the rule, "no interesting photographic prints can be made from uranium salts." Other than the frisson of handling uranium, what's the attraction?

[Phillip P. Dimor]

Reminds me of those stories about watchmakers, and those who painted the radium on watch hands to make them glow..

[Paul Howell]

Gee just when I got to thinking about plutomian toned prints.

[Marco B]

Gee just when I got to thinking about plutomian toned prints.

I think it would be healthier to go for a "Pluto-mania" print...

[Marco B]

Uranium Nitrate was used extensively in tinting and toning of silent motion pictures.

This is interesting, and probably a big warning to inexperienced archivists working with motion film.

I remember seeing a digital projection of an old silent movie that had a very peculiar orange / red tint in a museum exhibition recently, a color I had never seen before...

I first thought it was a sepia toned film, but I am now beginning to wonder? I sure hope it was sepia toned, or otherwise the poor sot who needed to put it on digital media may have had some unwanted "exposure" :o