Re: HELP!

Sil Horwitz (silh@iag.net)
Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:47:14 -0400

At 06:14 PM 960814 +1000, Derek wrote:
>As I mentioned in my first posting to the list, I've started my alt photo
>printing with salt prints. In my enthusiasm for coating the paper, I managed to
>drop a few spots of silver nitrate solution on the white kitchen worktops. And,
>of course, they've turned brown.
>
>To save me a lengthy stay in the doghouse (and quite possibly my life) can
>anyone out there tell me the best way to remove these brown stains.

Any bleach/fix should do it. The brown stain is silver; what needs to be
done is to oxidize the silver - the bleach does that - then fix out the
silver compound. If there is a residual stain, you can usually remove it
with sodium bisulfite solution.

Actually, the best stain remover is a dichromate/sulfuric acid solution, but
it has high toxicity, and may damage the worktop. The bleach/fix should work.

Sil Horwitz, FPSA
Technical Editor, PSA Journal
silh@iag.net