Drew, when you say "Bottles of your Glycin"...Originally Posted by Drew Wiley
Are you referring to Ansco 130 'Stock' or perhaps...
Just a Glycin/Sodium Sulfite or Glycin/Sodium Sulfite/Carbonate 'Stock' Solution. *You get the idea of course.
Just curious...
Thank-you! -Tim.
I think he's talking about the glycin itself, because those are the colors it goes through. I've never let mine go past mocha because that's where I've started to see staining. or maybe that's just where I ran out. It still "works" even when its quite brown, though it may work a bit differently. But its still pretty damn good. I've never made carefully controlled comparisons.
Wayne, thank-you for the reply. Yes, that could 'possibly' be the very case.
But, because Drew originally stated... "Wayne - I 'carefully' age different bottles of my Glycin"...
I was hoping, that he might choose to enlighten us further -- On this 'careful' technique of his?
As you and I are well aware, just letting your different bottles of (Raw) Glycin age...
Would not in 'itself' be especially noteworthy or very scientific.
Agreed!
Yes... Glycin is a 'very special' Reducing/Developing Agent -- For both Paper and Film.
I wish my memory wasn't failing, but 10-12 years ago that guy "John or Johnny"? the French Canadian chemical supplier? wanted to sell me POUNDS of Glycin for cheap about a year before he was closing shop. It was aged to perfection, brown and getting darker. Needlesstosay, I didn't buy it. I don't think "crap" was too harshits as if it is like you know, "Barbie's Amidol: you can make prints as pink as my townhouse! and Mustang convertible !" I never realized it was pink because it was stored in some sort of metal, I thought it was pink because it was substandard, made with cheap or wrong ingredients to save money and "switched" for what was supposed to be sold. You know after waiting two years, MAS did his test they gave him the good stuff, he said "This is good stuff, here is your big suitcase of money" and they gave him a crate of crap. I have heard of the "switch" happening in other industries ( the sample is high quality, the actual delivered product isn't) where buyers did not have their own testing facilities to make sure they aren't getting "ripped off". The time that Chinese Amidol was made and sold was around the time coal dust was found in toothpaste, melamine was found in baby formula and dog food, and other bad product was made. I don't use Amidol, never really found a need for it, even for developing out AZO. I kind of like Dektol-Green Azo prints personally. The big ones I have made hang perfectly over my green sofa.
I've got 4 bottles of Kodak Athenon (Glycin ) looks to be from the 40's looks like sparkling cocoa powder still free flowing powder. The Glycin I have from Eastman Chemical division from the 80's looks pretty bad. I made 130. I'm starting to think the old stuff maybe magic powder, I think I need to mix some up see how exotic I can get. I have some 11 x 14 Azo from 1985 try different dilutions see how many colors I can get.
@Duolab123... Thank-you for posting your comment Re: Athenon (Glycin).
At first, I did not think that the Trade Name 'Athenon' went back that far (1940's).
But, you are correct and there is the distinct 'possibility' that your Athenon is from the 1940's.
Please see p. 29 from the following Kodak Publication (from 1940) for verification.
KODAK Picture-Making Aids (No. 7735 8-40).
http://www.libraryweb.org/~digitized..._aids_1940.pdf
Regards, -Tim.
Thanks for the historical informations.
With your experience in using Fomalux, would you say that with a good negative, Amidol and Fomalux it may possible to get more finest details than with a standard developer and MC paper?
And to the masters of Amidol out there, do you think that it may give best results to combine Amidol with my favourite FB Fomabrom?
Ritchie
I'm not any kind of authority on Amidol, The Fomalux is lovely paper, I hope there is enough interest to keep it around. I think Bromide papers would also work very well. When I was young I was very found of Kodak Medalist, A great graded cold tone bromide paper, my other favorite was Kodak Ektalure (chloro-bromide??). I miss Ektalure the most, warmtone, G surface was my favorite for portraits. I have heard that it contained Cadmium in it's formulation, I don't know if this is true, but never the less its gone too. The modern VC papers That Ilford, Foma and others make are so great I get along fine. (I do miss all the choices) I have found that I do probably 90% of my final work on Ilford Multigrade warmtone and classic FB papers. I tone every print in Selenium, just the D-max improvement is worth the extra step. I've played around a lot with toners , I love toners, Kodak Blue Toner (Gold) is amazing. Sepia followed by a Gold toner yields some amazing reds.
Still so much fun to be had in a darkroom without a computer. With all the surplus equipment out there right now (I had an old fellow give me a 10 foot Arkay sink with a stand) this is a great time to be around :-) Best Regards, Mike
I was referring to sealed bottles of glycin powder. I always prepare fresh solutions for each work session anyway, even though 130 is known to keep well for awhile.
Per amidol - I find this developing agent most useful for bromide papers. Can't think of any premium ones left except for Ifobrom Galerie. Haven't tried it on any
current chlorobromide papers, only old Azo, so won't comment there. I have also used it for neutral black on the new Ilford Cooltone, though the other half of my
secret is generous gold toning, generally without any selenium. Split toning on warm papers is a completely different subject, in which cases I strongly prefer
glycin to amidol.
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