Re: Non-nasal identification of 'off' gum arabic solution
Paul, I hear ya, about the smell of soured gum arabic. The first time I mixed up the stuff from powder I trusted the old lit that said yes, it soured, but it worked just fine. YES it worked fine, but every time I used it I literally gagged! It is the WORST frikkin' smell, almost as bad as putrifying meat. Anyway, I am really interested to know about tea tree oil. I wonder if it is oily at all, and if you get "fish eyes" in your gum coats--the coat separates into swiss cheese looking holes. Please keep us posted when you use it, or if you want, send me a little vial of the stuff and I'd be willing to test it at the same time, too. I use thymol--i get 10 grams of the stuff and mix it up with 10ml of alcohol. It works great and i never get mold in my gum. But it is very fragrant, and so when I open up my tupperware box full of gum supplies and that little envelope of thymol crystals is in there, it's like getting a jolt of a headache remedy or Vicks Vaporub. But it works great and isn't very expensive and a little goes a looooonnnnngggg way. But I am very interested in your tea tree oil test because I think you can buy that at a drug store, correct? Chris PS since there are so many options in development etc. the fact that a more acid gum might be faster has never been an issue in my practice so that I have noticed differences between them all, and I mix my own or use store bought and lately have been using up some 6 yr old stuff I came across... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arcus, Paul" <Paul.Arcus@dsto.defence.gov.au> To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 5:00 PM Subject: Non-nasal identification of 'off' gum arabic solution Some time ago I posted a thread about the use of tea tree oil as a preservative for gum arabic (GA) solution. As tea tree oil is easy to source I wanted to use it for preservation of GA solution mixed from powdered GA (because I cannot source formalin or thymol). Tea tree oil is also a natural antiseptic, anti-bacterial, non-irritant and soluble in alcohol so it may provide a good alternative. As I live in the tropics GA solution with no preservative stored at room temperature usually smells worse than cat excrement after about 10 days. It also goes cloudy and / or gains a nice crust of green mould. About 3 months ago I mixed up 50ml of 26% GA solution adding 1ml of 10% tea tree oil in alcohol. I also made a batch with no preservative. The non-preserved GA went bad after 11 days. It went yellowish, cloudy and stank like 7 pairs of old socks kept warm in a plastic bag. To date the GA / tea tree oil solution appears a tiny bit cloudy but has no visible mould. The smell of tea tree oil is overpowering so I am unable to judge its efficacy by smell. I'm hoping soon to make some prints using the GA / tea tree solution. I would also make side-by-side comparison with non-preserved (fresh) GA solution. Elsewhere I've read that the properties of GA solution change with age (clearing, staining, etc). Noting these ageing effects and noting that I cannot judge it by smell how would I know if the solution is bad due to ageing / contamination or some other factor? Thanks, PAUL
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