Re: Sodium Bisulfite

Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>
> Katharine, Giovanni, Kate, etc.,
>
> Now that I am not in a rush to prepare for class and can think
> concisely, I'll reiterate my points:
>
> Giovanni asked if you could use sodium sulfite. I said yes. I qualified
> that with a caveat for longer wash times. (Nadeau, BTW, says p 40 that sod
> *bi* requires at least a half hour wash time--nothing about washtime with
> pot metabi, but he says p. 25 that sod "metabi" is less odorous.)

This is consistent with my own sniff-test, if he means that sodium
metabisulfite (those cutesy nicknames are like fingernails on a
blackboard to me; that's not to say I'm asking anyone not to use them,
only to explain why I don't) doesn't have the cough-producing fumes that
sodium bisulfite has.

>
> I said in my post, "Henney first to say pot metabi more effective than alum
> or sod bi in 1939--**no mention of the wash
> time**" so Henney does not fit your qualification for a reliable wash time
> source either.

> It looks like Scopick is the one;

In which case we've got nothing at all; there's no information there.
By which I mean, there's an assertion, but there's nothing there to back
it up, either firsthand empirical observation or reference to anyone
else's empirical observation.

But if Scopick is all we've got, then where does the 10 mins vs 30 mins
come from?

(BTW, I'm surprised you say you haven't studied Scopick, as I
> remember a long convo about his book with you...)

Goodness, I didn't mean I'd never read it, or hadn't read it more than
once, or hadn't looked closely in it for material related to a
discussion about it. When I said I hadn't studied it I simply meant I
hadn't pored over it so much I know it pretty much by heart, the way I
did with Crawford. And though I'm sure I've read it from cover to cover
more than once, there are many parts that haven't made any particular
impression, like apparently the assertion about potassium metabisulfite
taking less time to wash out than sodium bisulfite. And as I say,
without anything to back it up it carries about the same weight with me
as any expression of opinion. Kind of like Livick saying that ammonium
dichromate is no good for gum printing--- he might think that, and he
might say that, but that doesn't mean it's true.
 
Thanks for your kind words about the article,
Katharine
Received on Wed Aug 25 21:06:21 2004