Re: Kodalith fine line developer formula (sort of)

On November 23, 2004 12:49 pm, Ryuji Suzuki wrote:

>
> Formaldehyde and sulfite do not make free sulfite to be zero. They
> make an equilibrium working as a sulfite buffer, amounting free
> sulfite to equivalent of a couple of grams per liter. I have posted a
> developer calle "Burning Lithprint developer" in old pure-silver list,
> which contains a couple grams of sulfite, bromide and hydroquinone, in
> a solution buffered with trisodium phosphate. It's a very active
> developer for lith printing, but has very short life unless a gram of
> sulfite is added periodically, because of no sulfite reservoir. Yet I
> can get a few prints out of each liter of the solution. The idea is to
> have active solution ready for one-shot use to eliminate the guesswork
> associated with old brown.
>
> Hydroquinone-only classic lith developers are becoming
> obsolete. Modern lith film/developer system use contrast enhancing
> agents (hydrazine compounds) for true infectious development. But then
> lithographic films are getting obsolete as well.

        I've been muddling along with Kodak D-9. The life of the developer has been
fine but I've had other problems. I think I may be on the track to fix the
major one. Agfa paper seems to need a prewash to slow down the developer
getting into the paper. A more active developer would be a positive since my
times in the developer are 10+ minutes. OTOH the slow times are making
snatching the print less of an issue.

        Is just sulfite enough to get the pH high enough?

        Thanks
        Nick
Received on Tue Nov 23 15:15:13 2004