Coffee bean grinder + Chris's prints & blather
I'd think, Judy, you could buy a cheap coffee bean grinder and whirl that stuff to death to make it usable. Outside of course. Just a thought.Eric and company: What do you know about the keeping qualities of chemicals in general when they're bought in bulk but not used right away? I recently, for instance, threw out a large hunk of ferric ammonium citrate because it had turned into just that -- a really hard, solid hunk. While on that, Does the old link to Engelhard (bought out in '06) in Alabama still work to purchase the least expensive silver nitrate? Now there's talk of, for instance, 60 pound supply of whatever -- would you use, say a pound a month? That could still be 5 years... On the one hand, I'm using an old supply of ammonium dichromate, maybe 30 or 50 years old, and it seems fine... but on the other, there was that FAC. Is there any general info on the topic ? Is it reliable ?Some Ferric Ammonium Citrate has hardened on me before and I just smashed it up and it worked fine as it is quite soluble. An odd fact in Wikipedi-ing it was to find it is used in a Scottish soft drink, Im- Bru @ a .002% amount. No wonder we so enjoy the plaid and bagpipes. Other chemicals I've used have gone off or bad such as Metol (from age and oxidation), Pot. Bromide (age . . but parts still usable) and Glycin. While on the aspect of Glycin, Iv'e tried a great number of times to use it in a developer formula to print for it is supposed to give a red tone to one's print. It's an old Kodak formula: H2O 750 mls Sod Sulfite 25 grams Glycin 4 " Sod Carb 30.4 " Pot Brom 1 " to make 1 liter Dilute 1:2 w/water Exposures must be adjusted and color is determined by length of development. Have any of you ever tried this? My luck is nil . . . but my thoughts have led to the idea that perhaps an immensely long exposure is necessary. And, finally, looking @ Chris' new messy, moldy, brush strokey pix, the ones appealing to me is the 1st Father Daughter image for it reminds me of Louis Duco Du Hauron's image of the city of Agen, virtually the world's first color outdoor image, which employed virtually the same basic premise as tri-color gum And that last photo, the hand-colored Mordancage, "After Richter" w/ that blue vein. Both are quite interesting to view again. What'm I doin here . . . writing a blog? But hope some answers come to the multiple questions or POV's. Jack F
|