At 09:22 PM 5/23/00 +0100, John Palmer wrote:
[snip]
>Here is another simple suggestion. A problem I have is keeping
>chemicals, because I develop very few films. And these days it seems
>difficult to get chemicals in small quantities. 10 years ago you could
>get Microphen powder in sachets which made up to 300mL - perfect for a
>35mm tank, and 300mL is a standard of medicine bottle in the UK and
>easily available from a pharmacy. Now it comes in litre's worth, so
>you need to find a much larger dark airtight bottle.
>
>So I decided to give Ilford DDX developer a go. This is even worse - a
>litre of concentrate for GBP10 (USD15 approx). OK, it will do 16 films
>if you manage to use all of it before it goes off, but that's a big
>bottle that will hold a lot of air. Advantage is it's one-shot so you
>use it and pour it away, but storing the concentrate without it
>spoiling was a bit of a challenge.
>
>Solution - back to the pharmacy in search of 60mL bottles. (60mL
>diluted 1+4 equals 300mL, 1 tank's worth). They were a bit stunned
>when I asked for 15 60mL bottles, but since I wasn't in a rush they
>were happy to get them on their next order. Now for the next 15 films
>I have got the cencentrate in full, dark, airtight bottles, and it's
>even pre-measured ready for use.
An alternative to this is to use a product called by various names, but which
is essentially nitrogen gas in a spray-can. I've seen it sold in wine shops as
a solution to wine oxidation once a bottle is opened (you just fire a couple of
seconds' worth of squirts of nitrogen into the wine bottle, and it settles over
the wine in a nice layer, preventing oxidation), and it's also sold here in
Canada by (of all companies!) Lee Valley Tools, as a way to prevent
oxidation/curing of various shellacs and other liquid finishes once their
container is opened. With this stuff, it doesn't matter what size bottle you
have -- you essentially get the full shelf-life of your concentrate, regardless
of when you opened it.
Uh, by the by, I've never had reason to use this product to prevent wine
oxidation -- I'm ashamed to admit that wine bottles never last that long in my
household. 8^>
Garth "Another Dead Soldier" Wood
"A bad day doing photography is better
than a good day doing just about
anything else."
The Unofficial Olympus Web Photo Gallery at:
http://www.taiga.ca/~gallery/
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