Formaldehyde free Lith printing?

[Roger Scott]

I'm interested in trying my hand at some Lith printing but am a little worried about using a developer with formaldehyde (or para-formaldehyde) in it as my temporary darkroom isn't as well ventilated as I'd like. I know Moersch make a Lith developer which is formaldehyde free but I can't seem to find a supplier in Australia. Does anyone know if either of the Maco or Fotospeed developers are formaldehyde free as these seem to be the two which are for me the most easily obtained? Failing that does anyone have any other suggestions short of mixing my own (which I'd do if I had an accurate set of scales)?

Thanks,

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Hi there,

You could try Freestyle, they had an A-B lith developer but I don't know what was in it.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/

If not, there are lots of lith formulas without formaldehyde.

[Al Seyle]

Try undiluted Dektol. You won't get the ultimate dmax like an AB, but you will get very high contrast and it might be enough for your needs. Probably other paper developers will do as well.

[Roger Scott]

Thanks for the responses. I checked out Freestyle and couldn't spot anything other than the Maco and Fotospeed lith developers when I did a search for 'lith'. They did however have a nice instruction sheet on the Fotospeed developer which although not containing the exact information I was after made me realise I could probably get the safety datasheets from the manufacturers website. So after a bit of surfing it appears that although the Fotospeed LD20 contains formaldehyde the Maco Superlith doesn't. I'll order some Maco Superlith tomorrow and see how it goes - may as well give some of the other paper developers a whirl as well just for fun although without the infectious development I'm not sure how they'll go.

Thanks again,