Rodinal lasts forever, right?

[ruilourosa]

Toxic or highly toxic is a no question. Original Rodinal was never mild... hidroxides are highly corrosive, the developing agent is toxic and bromides added (not present in the original formula) are also poisonous. Things were added and removed from the formula several times but the poisonous or toxic nature of the concentrate was constant! The generic brands of rodinal work all well, but when when i now see some red tint on the concentrate and a lot of cristals (too much cristals) i throw away and open a new bottle. PC-TEA never failed me though...

The darkening of the leader of the film is a good test as the failures i had were complete!

cheers!

[Greg]

Have used Rodinal since the early 1970s. Never had a problem with it but then every 5 or so years I would replace my bottle of stock solution with a new bottle. Last year mistakenly used a 1:50 dilution from a stock bottle that I had saved from the 1970s. Negatives looked great! By the way, I immediately threw out that old bottle of Rodinal.

Greg

[mihag]

I don't know.
If you really want to know, I may ask my good friend who worked at Tetenal and who has sold for years the new Rodinal stuff.
He once told me that toxic chemicals has been substituted, maybe he knows.

Hi Ritchie, that would be great.

[plaubel]

Mihag, after a short phonecall I now can give the information, that Agfa Vaihingen, the oldest chemical company worldwide, had produced Rodinal until 2006.
Since decades, the formula often has changed, depending on knowledge and on the laws, which became continiously more stringent here in germany.
Which components exactly were substituted is not known to my friend.

As Randy said, the best quality concerning a longer life was given by the glass bottles, which once were substituted by Agfa with HD-PE bottles, not as bad as PE, but not so good as glass.

Around 2006 Agfa have had to give up and they had sold the formula of Rodinal, which seems to be the basic of each follower.
I want to say "seems to be", because one seller says, we are original, and other sellers say we are more original, then you can hear something like original-original, and so on.

I don't care, I love this stuff, I do not care red coulor, which sometimes comes a few days after opening the new bottle, I ignore some chrystals ( never have had thousands of them in the bottles, only a few ones); I protect the liquid with Propan, and I don't expect a lifespan more than one year.

Ritchie

[AuditorOne]

For me I felt it was a good idea to decant the Rodinal to a brown glass bottle that I bought from Photo Formulary.

Of course, if you have a habit of dropping glass bottles then the plastic one will probably survive better.

[mihag]

Thanks Ritchie.

[barnacle]

Well that was an interesting experiment: two sheets of film - from the same batch as the ones that had the edge speckling problem; same RO9 developer; same time; same concentration; same temperature.

The difference was that I did these in a Patterson orbital tank (which could use some roughing up of the base to let things behind the film, but that's another story) with continuous agitation - the only option with the Patterson - instead of ten seconds every minute, and with a much smaller amount of chemicals - 150ml instead of 1050ml for my usual tank.

One sheet was straight from the film holder in which it has been from the original load a month ago; the other was from the same holder but exposed to a 50W light for five seconds at six inches (we're dead scientific round 'ere!).

The result (based on a quick inspection while still wet) is one sheet of pure sheet, doesn't look like *any* fog, and one sheet a damn sight blacker than my negatives have been of late. Which suggests if nothing else that I'm insufficiently exposing the film, or there's a *huge* difference between the agitation methods. I'd expect the continuous agitation to increase the contrast, so it's going in the expected direction.

There was however no sign of the coloured speckling on either of these negatives.

I need to try this approach with a proper picture.

Neil

[Jac@stafford.net]

I also decant Rodinal into small brown bottles that have the expressed cap that displaces developer leaving no air in the bottles. I got a case of the bottles and they are small enough to use-up in a couple sessions.

[barnacle]

I'm beginning to wonder if the issues I had were down to disturbing the sediment in the bottom of the bottle - those crystals I heard and saw moving around.

After the black/white negative test I did a couple of days ago, I've just cooked a handful of negatives. The weather didn't play, but never mind: using a Paterson rotary tray with the mushrooms in to do four at a time, one minute prewash to shift the antihalation backing, 3.5ml of R09 in 160ml water (~50:1) at 20C for 8 minutes, continuous agitation. Then 1 minute wash and 4 minutes Ilford rapid fixer, 16 minute wash in four changes of water and a drop of fairy liquid. The film is out-of-date Adox CHS-50; both it and the R09 are the same as previous discussion.

The result is a scan that is immediately usable; the Xsane histogram shows a full spread with zero gain and contrast, and a gamma of 1. The Gimp indicates that the actual black is around the mid-40s and peak white at around 250 (with an eight bit scan).

As scanned:


With gamma set to 0.65 and black and white point adjusted as above:


Perhaps one should treat R09 the same way as a decent claret?

Neil

[Fr. Mark]

There are lots of formulas for Rodinal and similar stuff made from acetaminophen and they last a long while in my hands especially unopened and even work when dark colored but not forever. I did not see the magic with Rodinal and switched to other developers that are easier to mix or keep as well or better and for which there's a defined recipe. (D-23 and Pyrocat HD) but ymmv.

I've thought about getting a tank of Argon and a regulator but until I buy one for welding I'll hold off. I can buy another of film and processing chemicals for the same price. Longevity of developers ought to go way up of oxygen could be excluded. It's standard practice for storing chemicals in an organic synthesis lab but it won't pay with photo chemicals in my basement.