Now what am I going to do?

[photographs42]

Now what do I do??? I just came from my local photo supply shop where I was told they had no 28% Acidic Acid and Kodak had discontinued the 16 oz. bottles, and all I can get now is 1 gal. full strength Acidic Acid (a lifetime supply for people half my age) and they don’t stock that.

They did have some Indicator Stop Bath but I hate that stuff.

What are you guys using?

Jerome

[Ken Lee]

If you use an alkaline fixer, there is no need for Acetic Acid at all.

Acid stop bath probably became standard operation procedure back when films were soft, fixers were acidic, and contained hardening agents. An acid stop bath helped prolong the life of the fixer, but was a bit of overkill with regard to stopping the action of the developer.

I use a plain water stop bath, and mix my own fixer, using the classic T-3 Alkaline Fixer (http://www.jackspcs.com/tf3.htm) formula. It's fun, and often far less expensive, to mix your own formulas.

You can also buy the wonderful pre-made T-4 Alkaline Fixer (http://www.photoformulary.com/uploads/03-0141.pdf) from Photographer's Formulary (http://www.photoformulary.com).

The chemical indicator is a nice feature, but when all you use is tap water, you can just change it as often as you like.

[Gene McCluney]

If you really want an acetic acid stop bath on the cheap, and you have a local grocery store just get Distilled White Vinegar, which is a 5% acetic acid solution, and normal tray stop bath is 2% acetic acid, so you can figure out the dilution. In addition, you can use it on your salads, serving double purpose. Oh, don't put it on a salad after you use it as a stop bath all day in the darkroom.

[Michael Graves]

If you really want an acetic acid stop bath on the cheap, and you have a local grocery store just get Distilled White Vinegar, which is a 5% acetic acid solution, and normal tray stop bath is 2% acetic acid, so you can figure out the dilution. In addition, you can use it on your salads, serving double purpose. Oh, don't put it on a salad after you use it as a stop bath all day in the darkroom.

Why not? It gives the salad a wonderful bokeh?

[Gene McCluney]

Now what do I do??? I just came from my local photo supply shop where I was told they had no 28% Acidic Acid and Kodak had discontinued the 16 oz. bottles, and all I can get now is 1 gal. full strength Acidic Acid (a lifetime supply for people half my age) and they don’t stock that.

Jerome

Are you saying that they can only provide for you "GALCIAL ACETIC ACID"?? in one gallon jugs? This is what I use, but I do a lot of film and paper processing, and my last 1 gallon jug lasted less than 10 years. Working on a new jug now.

Freestyle offers "Arista Stop Bath" concentrate to make 4 gallons Cat No., 11912 for $4.89. Used at 1:31 dilution.

[Mike Davis]

Ilfostop, vinegar, etc

check B&H and Adorama.

[Donald Qualls]

They did have some Indicator Stop Bath but I hate that stuff.

Not sure what you hate about Indicator Stop Bath. The indicator? Just ignore it and one-shot like you would if mixing from 28%. The Indicator Stop Bath is a good bit cheaper than buying vinegar to dilute 1+2 or 1+3 for stop bath, even if used one-shot, and it's quite a bit more concentrated than 28% (by my calculation, it's around 90% strength, assuming the recommended dilution is 1.5%, as is commonly called out).

If you don't like that, go to your nearest brewing supplier and buy a pound of citric acid -- comes in crystals like table sugar. A half teaspoon in a quart or water will give a very workable odorless stop bath, and it's fairly inexpensive -- a one pound bag will make around 15 gallons of working solution.

Or, as other have suggested, use a water bath stop; even if you still use acid fixer, you mainly just need to avoid carrying developer over into the fixer, which would reduce its acidity (and even *that* makes little difference if you don't use a hardening fixer, which you shouldn't with modern films unless you develop Efke film routinely).

[lee\c]

citric acid from a beer and wine making store works fine also.

lee\c

[photographs42]

Thanks for all the help. Us old dogs are kind of set in our ways I guess. For 25+ years I have processed film and paper using the same basic materials and procedure and the thought of changing just isn’t pleasant.

Ken: I use Ilford’s archival fixer and, while I haven’t checked the contents, I am pretty sure it’s acetic because of the way it feels. I could use a water stop bath but I like to feel the print go from slimy to not slimy. I have no idea why I like that but it just feels right.

Gene: Thanks, but for some reason I don’t like the thought of using vinegar. I don’t like it on my salad either. As for the Glacial Acetic Acid, yes, they don’t stock it and can’t ship it. If you look at B+H, their Kodak 1-gal. bottle is “Out of Stock” and under that it says “Due to shipping regulations, we cannot ship this item at this time. It can only be bought in our store”.

Donald: A long time ago I developed a dislike for Indicator Stop Bath because of the tint that lingers through the fixer step when doing test prints. A lot of my images have very delicate highlight areas and when doing tests, I wash the test prints for a minimal time of a minute or less. This isn’t enough to clear the tint and the tint was effecting my judgement of the high values. It wasn’t much but the yellow tint was adding appearent density that dissapeared with proper washing.

I think I will try the citric acid route. I stopped at the local grocery last night and they didn’t have any but St. Louis is a big place and somebody will have it. I play volleyball with a guy that works for Anheuser-Busch. Maybe he can get some for me.

Thanks again all.
Jerome

[photographs42]

citric acid from a beer and wine making store works fine also.

lee\c

Hi Lee,
I grew up in Fort Worth. Stop by and see me if you get over to the Artfest Art Fair in Addison Memorial Day weekend.
Jerome