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Re: used orbit bath and fixer
At 09:31 PM 04/16/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Hope I'm not asking too many questions today. I was wondering if people on
>this list re-use the fixer that they use on their film, and if so, how many
>4x5 negatives can you fix with, say, a quart of diluted fixer? My bottle
>says it lasts seven days diluted. (I use Ilford rapid fixer, which you
>dilute 1 to 4)
> In regard to Orbit Bath, I can't find anything on the bottle that
>says how long it lasts once you dilute it, or how many negatives you can
>wash with a certain amount of it. At U of H we used it over and over, but
>sometimes it didn't work too well at washing out the fix, I noticed.
>
>--shannon
>
>
The capacity of fixer depends on what you are fixing with it. For longest
life for either film or paper use two successive baths. This will extend
the life of a fixer from four to ten times. There is an iodide test
solution desceribed in the _Kodak Black-and-White Darkroom Dataguide_ for
testing fixing baths. This is similar to the product Edwal sells as
Hypocheck but is of known dilution. The formula in the book is for 1 liter,
a lifetime supply. 50 ml is enough.
Wash aid has limited life. Its a rather diluted sulfite solution which
absorbs oxygen from the atmosphere becoming sulfate. While sulfate also has
some wash aid properties, its not quite as good as sulfite. Essentially,
diluted wash aid should be used one shot and tossed.
----
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles,Ca.
dickburk@ix.netcom.com