Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/05/22

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Subject: [Leica] Re: need quick answer on film with xtol :)
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 09:18:03 -0700

At 10:57 AM 5/22/2002 -0400, olivier nguyen wrote:
>hi,
>I mix the xtol and i found nothing .  it just clear as normal water.  no 
>condensation of any kind.
>Olivier


A while back, there were some bad 1 liter Xtol packages. Is it possible 
that you got one of these?

There is a lot of us that use Xtol with perfect results. I have ALWAYS, for 
the past 50 years, used distilled or deionized water to mix ALL film 
developers and stabilizers/photoflo solutions. Because of this, my 
processes remain stable over the years regardless of what the 
city/county/state does to our water. I have a deionizer in my darkroom that 
gives me water equal to triple distilled water.

I recently mixed a two year old 5 liter package of Xtol. It took six hours 
plus, with a magnetic mixer, to get the packets into solution. The 
developer works perfectly.

When mixing Xtol, package A will turn a color (wine color or a dirty color) 
and package B will cause it to go perfectly clear. This is a clue that the 
mix is OK.

Finally, I NEVER EVER just take a bottle of fresh mixed developer, or a 
bottle that has been sitting for a month or so, and just use it. This is 
film developing suicide. I take a piece of film, the leader from 35mm film, 
cut a strip from some 4x5 B&W film, whatever you have (LUGgers will always 
have that curved cut leader from the 35mm film you are about to develop,) 
pour a few cc's of the developer you are about to use into a small beaker, 
water glass, whatever... and put the film scrap into it. Swish it around 
occasionally over the next ten minutes. You can load your reels while this 
is sitting. Remember to cut off and save ALL of your 35mm film leaders for 
future use.

The piece of film in the developer should turn black or have the appearance 
of turning black around the edges. This tells you that your developer is 
developing the film. You know it's safe to use on your film.

That's it for now.

Jim

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