RE: Sources for wet plate collodion chemicals

My understanding is that Sodium Cyanide is NOT an option for wet plate
fixing. Have never taken the time ask WHY, but I've seen this posted several
times before on the Civil War Nuts wet plate site.

You can brighten your image a bit if you use hypo by adding a drop or two of
your silver nitrate solution to the shot of developer before flowing it over
the plate. Also, I've read that you can use a drop of nitric acid in the
developer yielding similar results.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Smigiel [mailto:jsmigiel@kvcc.edu]
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 8:23 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Sources for wet plate collodion chemicals

>>> cwrigh2@twcny.rr.com 08/25/05 10:41 AM >>>
...
Instead of the expensive potassium cyanide (which is also deadly
poisonous), use the (somewhat) safer and cheaper sodium cyanide.

Christopher,

Is there any difference in the color of the wetplate image if the sodium
cyanide is used? I've read and observed that sodium thiosulfate gives a
more neutral-silver color than the potassium cyanide. Does the use of
sodium cyanide retain the coffee color produced by K cyanide or is it
more similar to the hypo result?

Joe
Received on Thu Aug 25 21:28:25 2005