[Leica] Wet work: thank you and a few more questions...

[Malcolm McCullough <MM4@mm-croy.mottmac.com>]

I made the reprehensibly vague statement:

<<Alkali stock solutions can be kept in glass bottles, but they may etch 
them
after a few months. Plastic bottles might be better.>>

then Frank Filippone rightly asked:

<<can you expand upon the developers that are alkaline enough to
create a problem?  If possible, by brand name....

Specifically I would be interested in HC110, TMax-RS, Xtol, and D76.>>

Frank,

I should have said 'plain alkali stock solutions...'.

The only place I have ever come across the recommendation for plastic 
bottles (once upon a time I would have called them plastics bottles - but 
I'm a pretty with-it kind of cat) is in the Anchell and Troop volume that 
happens to be bound with a plastic comb - significant or what?

Now I was taught that if one wanted to learn something from a book then one 
should consult at least two different books before even beginning to trust 
the information (difficult in some fields because the standard work just 
gets ripped off wholesale so all the books have the same mistakes). I 
confess that I failed to do this on this occasion, not being able to find 
another, similar book. My copy of Jacobson looks as if it pre-dates 
photography, never mind plastic bottles. Jacobson does say that you have to 
use a rubber bung rather than a cork or a glass stopper on bottles of K and 
Na carbonate.

A&T were referring specifically to plain carbonate 'Part B' stock solutions, 
not for one-part stock solutions. There is, of course, no need for glass for 
these plain alkali stock solutions.

I have no experience of HC110, I'm afraid.
Nor any of TMax RS, but I'd guess that it would store better if decanted 
into small glass bottles once opened.
Xtol and D-76 are fine in glass. The stock solutions of these are not very 
alkaline, by the way: pH 8.2 and 8.6 respectively.
Rodinal (pH 11.2 or thereabouts) keeps perfectly in glass. I decant such 
devs as Rodinal and DiXactol A into 50 or 100 ml glass bottles. It only 
takes 1 ml of DiXactol A to dev film so 250 ml can last a while. DiXactol B 
(sodium hydroxide and an antifoggant, methinks) can stay in the plastic 
bottle it came in.

Regards,
Malcolm