Shelf Life - Rodinal & Other Chemicals

[EdC]

Thanks for everyone for the feedback! I should have explained further that I was planning on making use of the old Rodinal for practice with test negatives so that I could get used to working with developing tanks and rotary processing. However, with some of the feedback above, it seems to me that I would run the risk of possibly creating problems for myself in the results. I wouldn't want to be getting substandard results and not know if it was the development technique or the chemistry, or both. Time is precious enough without making things more complicated. So, just need to figure out the best way to dispense with the old chemistry. Where I live, we do have a household hazardous waste disposal day later on this year. Since I have to take some items there as it is, it wouldn't be any extra work to include the older chemistry.

Thanks,

Ed

[Jac@stafford.net]

I dispensed fresh bottles of Adox Rodinal into multiple 2 ounce brown bottles which have air displacement caps. Fill to the top, screw on the cap, no air bubble. It lasts forever.

[LabRat]

If in doubt, try it out... With any old liquid dev, there is a chance of dev failure, (I have seen Rodinal do it) so after making a working solution, take a strip of fogged undeveloped film and leave in dev for 2 or 3 minutes and see if the film turns dark grey/black... This is a crude test, but because Rodinal will not develop at all if past due, but will save film from dev failure... If it is really dark blue after mixing, that might be another sign it might not do the job, so do a strip every time, even if you used the concentrate recently...

Steve K

[Michael E]

If it's just for practice right now, why don't you give the old stuff a chance? If you were using it for important work, I'd caution you, too. But for tests and getting re-acquainted? What do you have to lose, except half a roll of outdated film?

[EdC]

Hmmm.... I think that Michael and Steve have brought up some good points. I have some old, old, Plus X 220 film which would be a good candidate to simply fog and then see how the Rodinal works. That would be a good use for it.

Thanks again!

Ed

[Randy]

A year or two ago I decided to make some contact prints (it had been at least 15 years since I had done any wet printing). I had some very old paper of various brands and some Dektol that I had mixed up - again, about 15 years earlier. I always kept my Dektol in 16oz plastic bottles filled to the top, so I had about 6-8 bottles. Anyway, I diluted 1:3 as I always had and it seemed to work just as I remembered. It had not even discolored.

[BetterSense]

I dispensed fresh bottles of Adox Rodinal into multiple 2 ounce brown bottles which have air displacement caps. Fill to the top, screw on the cap, no air bubble. It lasts forever.

I use borosilicate scintillation vials. They come in packs of 100, and hold just enough for one tray development session. You can fit a 10ml syringe in them too, so I also suck out half when I need to develop roll film.

[rwhb1]

Guys a tip from the UK! I use wine bottle vacuum stoppers. My logic is that by removing the air and having a vacuum inside the bottle must prolong life. It seems to work!

Russ

[Jim Noel]

Maybe I am the exception but I have had refrigerated Rodinal concentrate go bad. Unless the Zone VI powder looks darned close to off white I wouldn't bother with it. Kind of like brown Dektol that has aged.

Now when the Rodinal went bad, it went really bad. An overexposed strip of film looked essentially clear, so you can try it.

Whn you froze it you probably caused some of the chemicals in the formula to alter their structure causing them to become ineffective for the intended purpose.

[D. Bryant]

If it's just for practice right now, why don't you give the old stuff a chance?

Because you waste time which can't be replaced. Now if you need to test the viability of the developer or whatever that's another issue, but for practice - wasting your time.