ben_hutcherson
4-Jun-2017, 15:01
I'm itching to "get my hands dirty" with wet plates and tintypes, but I've hit a bit of a road block with the collodion.
In general, all the reagents needed are NOT an issue for me. The Br- and I- salts are not an issue, nor are the ether, absolute alcohol, AgNO3 and even the KCN(should I want to use that, although I don't want to if it will work with a thiosulfate fixer). I have two 4x5 plate holders and a bunch of high grade optical glass sheets I can easily cut. I can even make my own nitrocellulose if need be, but I'm not particularly keen on doing so.
I've been thinking of easily available sources of nitrocellulose. The first one that comes to mind is smokeless powder, although even slow single base rifle powders tend to have a bit of nitroglycerin and also burn retardents so I don't think it would be an ideal source. Magician's flash paper comes to mind(obviously dissolved in alcohol/ether) but I don't know if there's anything else on it.
Does anyone know of another commercial source of collodion? Like I said, I can certainly make the nitrocellulose, but I don't want to go through the drying process before dissolving it.
In general, all the reagents needed are NOT an issue for me. The Br- and I- salts are not an issue, nor are the ether, absolute alcohol, AgNO3 and even the KCN(should I want to use that, although I don't want to if it will work with a thiosulfate fixer). I have two 4x5 plate holders and a bunch of high grade optical glass sheets I can easily cut. I can even make my own nitrocellulose if need be, but I'm not particularly keen on doing so.
I've been thinking of easily available sources of nitrocellulose. The first one that comes to mind is smokeless powder, although even slow single base rifle powders tend to have a bit of nitroglycerin and also burn retardents so I don't think it would be an ideal source. Magician's flash paper comes to mind(obviously dissolved in alcohol/ether) but I don't know if there's anything else on it.
Does anyone know of another commercial source of collodion? Like I said, I can certainly make the nitrocellulose, but I don't want to go through the drying process before dissolving it.