Re: making Gelatin Emulsion

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From: Tox Gunn (tox@remarque.org)
Date: 01/01/02-08:21:13 PM Z


The SPIE conference proceedings from the Holographic Materials and related
conferences of the late 90's have information on this - browse the stacks
at your local college library. Based on their articles, I've been slowly
getting the materials together. (This is incidentally also a pretty good
place to start looking for Lippmann photography information - some of Hans
Bjelkhagen's articles are excellent overviews.) Seems that university
students have been doing more work in homebrewed plates in the last several
years since the commercial holography offerings from Agfa narrowed. The
best article on emulsion synthesis I've found was by some students in Japan
in 1998 or so, who did tests of a dozen different sensitizers and a dozen
differing concentration/ripening schedules - when I find the paper again
(my apartment is currently a pit), I can post the cite if you would like.

Some things to keep in mind:

I've not found a good source for the sensitizing dyes - minimum quantity is
usually off-scale and the issue of direct sales to individuals has gotten
no easier since 9/11. Example - for one of the cyanine series dyes I was
looking at, for a batch of a couple dozen plates I would have needed ~2ml
of a 1:1000 w/v sol'n in ethanol but the dye was sold in units of 1 gram
powdered for ~$120, and only if I were associated with a manufacturer or
university.

Glass plates may need be subbed before coating with the emulsion.

The impression I get from the lit is that the coating method and
consistency may have a lot of personal variability. Some decisions to make
include: spin coating vs. spreading with a meyer rod, coating platewise vs.
coating a large sheet and cutting it down, etc.

If you get there before I do, please share your notes and observations!..;)

Good luck,
Tox

At 06:27 PM 1/1/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Does anyone on this list know where to find recipes for making gelatin
>emulsion?
>
>I am not looking for liquid light which seems slow from today's point of
>view, maybe it is mostly silver chloride? I am looking to make a relatively
>modern silver bromide/iodide asa 25 to 125 B&W emulsion to coat glass
>plates.
>
>The more in depth of how to actually process, digest , sensitize the better.
>
>.


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