RE: haunted VDB
On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, C.Breukel@lumc.nl wrote: Well yes and no.... No doubt there is special equipment and technique required for success, at least with some advanced procedures, but that can also shut out everybody else, unnecessarily, as I see it. If I'd waited til I "knew what I was doing," I never would have begun... Or to put it another way, one learns by doing. Assuming common sense of course, which is, sadly, at times less common than it should be. Happily, some rules of common sense are no-brainers... (Otherwise: SERVES YOU RIGHT ?)For a fixer free selenium toner see: http://www.jackspcs.com/t55.htm Beware that Se is toxic, only do this when you know what you are doing and have the right equipment Also, having observed a number of procedures by "experts," I doubt there's a secret code to handling chemicals, as I've anyway been doing these many years (& still have all my fingers & teeth) ... In fact a lot of it is the common sense of a cook. Plus, to say you can't do it unless you know it already is a vicious circle. (And where are you when I'm jaywalking, or standing on a chair trying to close a window just out of reach or chasing man and mean dog off my front stoop or coming home alone from Times Square at 2 AM or carrying a set of heavy books down a ladder from an 11-foot high loft, or just tripping over the throw rug I should have thrown out long ago..? In fact most old ladies die from falls, not from nasty chemicals they handle at arm's length. However, to list the obvious: Absolutely NO eating in the lab (or darkroom); your bare hands, ungloved. don't go past the door. (And a barrier cream under the gloves won't hurt, plus of course those gloves are carefully washed & dried between uses.) If I see you with bare hands in anything, including the washwater, you're in for it. If you're weighing chemicals, you ABSOLUTELY do not Not EVER shake the chemical out onto the scale. You reach in with a long-handled spoon (preferably plastic or stainless) and gently transfer to a piece of paper (folded up around the edges) on the scale. It's also best to wear a clean filter mask and goggles when mixing & measuring toxic or for that matter any chemical (you never know what you'll be allergic to, or what you'll GET to be allergic to when you've been exposed to another allergenic substance). When you're finished, the entire work area gets blotted with a damp sponge which is then well rinsed & rung out, or better yet a paper towel you then carefully dispose of. AND ABOVE ALL YOU DO NOT EVER, EVER, EVER SMOKE WHEN WORKING WITH CHEMICALS. I've said this before, but it can't hurt to repeat: Chemicals in the air attach to smoke, and are therefore sucked directly into your lungs. Oh shucks, Cor -- that's what I was afraid of. Tho now I think of Liam's advice in his P-F article about making your own gold chloride (P-F #3 ??): It went something like: "Divorcing? Get the ring."On gold: when economy goes down people start to buy gold, the gold price has increases considerably Best, Cor best, Judy
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