Alternatives to Brown Plastic Jugs

In article ,
(Dr. Dagor) wrote:

Air (specifically O2) is probably a bigger concern than light. And
gallon is a large quantity. Even if you make developer in gallon
units you are better off with smaller bottles [...]

Ya know, it has been a hard week and I'm tired so I'll quibble before
signing off to a good sleep. If (IF) you are using glass (or a plastic
that doesn't admit oxygen), then what you speak of is all about surface
area exposed to air - the amount of surface compared to total volume. Man,
just fill the bottle to the top. Big containers are a Good Thing to the
person who uses them. Can't say for those who mix it up and leave it a
year, but why should we care?

On 4/9/2004 4:56 PM jjs spake thus:

In article ,
(Dr. Dagor) wrote:

Air (specifically O2) is probably a bigger concern than light. And
gallon is a large quantity. Even if you make developer in gallon
units you are better off with smaller bottles [...]

Ya know, it has been a hard week and I'm tired so I'll quibble before
signing off to a good sleep. If (IF) you are using glass (or a plastic
that doesn't admit oxygen), then what you speak of is all about surface
area exposed to air - the amount of surface compared to total volume.

No need to quibble about it: you're right and he's wrong. As Dan Quinn pointed
out somewheres up above here, volume increases faster than surface area, so
the bigger, the bettah. Simple math, dontcha know.


--
.... but never have I encountered a guy who could not be bothered
to make his own case on his own show.

- Eric Alterman on his appearance on Dennis Miller's bomb of a show
on CNBC (3/17/04)

BertS wrote

Mark in Maine wrote:

If I recall correctly, the type of bottles that I use, which can be
found at scientific supply houses are referred to as 'Boston Round' or
something like that - I have found two different types of caps for
these - ones with plastic cone shaped liners, and ones with cardboard
liners - I prefer the plastic cone ones since they hold up better and
probably retain fewer chemicals on them.


Those cones can be removed so you can rinse behind them. Just in case some
chemicals got in and you swapped caps with something different.

A jeweler's screwdriver will slide into the edge and you can pry them out.

Bert

I've come across two brands, Polycone and Polyseal. My entire
mass of amber glass Boston Rounds have one or the other of those caps.
Do not overfill. I use the cap ledge as a guide. The cone is forced
into the neck of the bottle. I dry the bottle top then the cap goes
on. They are rinsed prior to reuse.
The cone mimics a rubber stopper and is held in contact by the
screw cap. I can't think of a more sure way to seal a bottle. Also
they may be reused many times.
Tri Ess Sciences is a source for the above as well as other gear
and chemistry. They do sell just caps. www.tri-esssciences.com Dan

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 11:06:04 -0500, John
wrote:
....
And it just might help out the conversation on this group !
....

apr1004 from Lloyd Erlick,

But maybe not the subject matter!!

For chemical solution storage, I like Pepsi bottles. One liter, PETE
plastic, wide mouth, a plastic-lined screw cap made to contain
contents under gas pressure. Zero cost. Clear vs colored bottles is a
non-issue if they spend most of their time in a cabinet or darkened
room. Clear is preferrable because it permits examination of the
contents.

Things like jugs and funnels and the like are better purchased from
non-photo outlets. The nine dollar plastic jugs are a good
illustration of why.

regards,
--le

Shop around. Chemical supply houses sell quality plastic ware at a quite a
bit less. Some of the bigger photo mail order places do too. If I don't
need the brown color (usually I don't), I've been using 2 liter soft drink
bottles. They are impermeable to air (unlike LD polyethylene), convenient,
and extremely cheap, but you may have to replace them a bit more often.

"SofaKing" wrote in message
news:laddc.52524$Ig.40384@pd7tw2no...
My local photo place wants $9 a pop for those 1 gal. chemical jugs! I feel
it's a little much for 25 cents worth of plastic. Are they magic or
something. Couldn't I use rinsed out antifreeze jugs or windshield washer
jugs? Do they have to be opaque? Thx.

(jjs) wrote

Dr. Dagor) wrote:

Air (specifically O2) is probably a bigger concern than light. And
gallon is a large quantity. Even if you make developer in gallon
units you are better off with smaller bottles [...]

Ya know, it has been a hard week and I'm tired so I'll quibble before
signing off to a good sleep. If (IF) you are using glass (or a plastic
that doesn't admit oxygen), then what you speak of is all about surface
area exposed to air - the amount of surface compared to total volume. Man,
just fill the bottle to the top. Big containers are a Good Thing to the
person who uses them. Can't say for those who mix it up and leave it a
year, but why should we care?


A very important point is being overlooked. IF, the bottle
material is entirely impermeable to air, if it is full, and if it is
sealed, THEN the surface area to volumn ratio is of no consequence.
I think most would agree that glass is the last word where
impermeability is concerned. I use glass, so big or small bottle, I
worry not. The less so because I use caps which SEAL.
I'll restate that. The aging of chemistry due to air finding
it's way through glass into the bottles is out of the question. I do
check and recheck the cap to be sure the slightly resilient cone
is snug whithin the neck of the bottle.

A few words about oxygen. There is'nt very much of it. I doubt
a 2.54 centimeter cube of air would keep a flea breathing more than
a few minutes. SEALED, impermeable bottles are an oxygen hungry
solution's best insurace. Dan

In article ,
(Dan Quinn) wrote:


[...]
A few words about oxygen. There is'nt very much of it. I doubt
a 2.54 centimeter cube of air would keep a flea breathing more than
a few minutes. SEALED, impermeable bottles are an oxygen hungry
solution's best insurace.

Now we will have people floating a flea in the top of the bottle.

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 14:17:53 GMT, "SofaKing"
wrote:

My local photo place wants $9 a pop for those 1 gal. chemical jugs! I feel
it's a little much for 25 cents worth of plastic. Are they magic or
something. Couldn't I use rinsed out antifreeze jugs or windshield washer
jugs? Do they have to be opaque? Thx.



apr1204 from Lloyd Erlick,

I think the whole issue of light having an effect on darkroom
solutions is academic. Whether a container is clear, brown or opaque
has little practical effect in a usual darkroom.

Direct sunlight would be of most consequence to chemical soultions.
Direct, bright daylight would be next. Interior, artificial lighting
would be the least degrading light (well, next to safelight...). The
energy content of the light is the issue. (Don't put your grow op in
the darkroom!)

Most darkrooms are dark most of the time. If solutions are stored in
clear glass bottles in a cabinet or under a sink, in a room that is
mostly dark, and lit by artificial light when it is not dark, I'd say
the degradation of chemistry by light would be too slight to consider.
Much better to control oxygen degradation.

I like clear containers because I can take a good look at my
solutions, and especially because I can monitor the condition of my
containers...

Over the years I have gone from using gallon, or larger, jugs, to a
multiplicity of small bottles suitable for one shot processing, to
very nearly no storage of liquid chemistry at all.

I like to measure out dry chemicals and mix directly to a working
solution.

But of course, once I've mixed and used my working solution of Ansco
120 print developer (the D23 of prints...) the temptation to store and
re-use is sometimes overwhelming. So I put it in a clear bottle, and
refrain from putting a label on it. If I can't remember what it is or
how old it is, it is too old. I find 120 does fairly well after
twenty-four hours, even forty-eight. But I think making it with
distilled water is far more important than storing it in a brown
container.

Some chemicals take a while to dissolve, so per cent solutions have to
be stored. EDTA is a good example. I don't worry about light harming
my EDTA in its clear bottle (made of PETE plastic). I make ten per
cent solutions of potassium bromide (and keep it in clear PETE), but
not because it's hard to dissolve -- it absorbs moisture from the air
so readily that the contents of the (brown glass!) storage bottle cake
up if it's opened too often. So I open it around four times over its
lifetime to make my per cent solutions. (Actually, now I think of it,
Kodak sells potasium bromide in polyethylene now. My rapidly
seniorizing memory shows it surprisingly clearly in brown glass...).

A very good source of containers for the darkroom is -- the garbage.
Restaurant dumpsters supply lots of very heavy duty plastic pails and
lids, in sizes from a few liters to twenty liters, both
air/water-tight and less tight. Stay away from any that held greasy
stuff. Pails that held fruit salad clean rapidly. (Seeing the size of
those pails puts me right off fruit salad, perhaps not very
logically.) I've got several twenty liter pails that originally held
dill pickles. They cleaned up in a moment, but the smell of garlic
pickles held on for months.

Any kind of chemically based photo or cinema film processing plant
will throw away many types of containers and closures, in amazingly
large quantities. Glass jugs and cubitainers that held distilled water
are the best because they require little or no cleaning.

I used to work in a welfare emergency hostel, which discarded 125 ml
brown glass bottles that came filled with children's cough syrup. They
went through them at a furious rate. There was a product called
'grippe water' that was given to babies. The darkroomie in me compels
me to read the label on every damn thing I get in my hands. Grippe
water was five per cent alcohol. None of the "toxics" in the darkroom,
powder, liquid or gas, smelly or insidious, comes close to offending
me as much as giving alcohol to infants.

It's not necessary to pay nine dollars for a plastic container. It's
possible to pay zero, or to buy much superior glass containers for
less than that. In fact, the obnoxious, combative darkroomie in me
says any photo shop that tries to sell nine dollar (would those be US
dollars?) plastic jugs does not merit patronage.

Same goes for overpriced plastic funnels! (Cut the bottom off a two
liter PETE soft drink bottle, turn it upside down, and -- there is a
funnel.)

regards,
--le

"Dr. Dagor" wrote:

"SofaKing" wrote in message news:laddc.52524$Ig.40384@pd7tw2no...
My local photo place wants $9 a pop for those 1 gal. chemical jugs! I feel
it's a little much for 25 cents worth of plastic. Are they magic or
something. Couldn't I use rinsed out antifreeze jugs or windshield washer
jugs? Do they have to be opaque? Thx.

Air (specifically O2) is probably a bigger concern than light. And
gallon is a large quantity. Even if you make developer in gallon
units you are better off with smaller bottles -- quart or liter. If
you fill them right to the top, the oxidization is minimized and your
chemicals will last longer.

Dark quart bottles are what things like Hydrogen Peroxide come in.
Just about any pharmacy has empty brown bottles in that size they will
sell you.

Here's another trick... The dusters you can buy at any office supply
store contain a heavier than air chemical that is pretty much inert to
photochemicals. If you put a couple of puffs of that stuff in the
bottle, it acts as a float and keeps the bad old air away from the
good old chemicals.
The amount of air that is in the water you use to mix your solutions may
be enough to reduce considerably the capacity of your developer. This is
especially true of ascorbate developers. 0.09 grams of oxygen will
oxidize 1 gram of ascorbic acid, and sulfite will not prevent it.
Neither will storage at low pH. The oxygen scavenging power of ascorbic
acid not only works at pH of about 3, but the products of oxidation are
also acidic. 1 gram of ascorbic acid is also capable of reducing enough
silver halide to produce an average density of 1 on 38 rolls of film or
8X10 sheets, so 0.09 grams of oxygen may reduce your developer's
capacity by 38 rolls of film. The point is that keeping oxygen from
entering the solution after mixing may not be enough. A way to scavenge
all oxygen from the solution right from the start is needed.

Patrick Gainer wrote

The amount of air that is in the water...

(that would be .00845 grams of oxygen at saturation per liter)

...you use to mix your solutions
may be enough to reduce considerably the capacity of your developer.
This is especially true of ascorbate developers. 0.09 grams of oxygen
will oxidize 1 gram of ascorbic acid,

That be the case 1/10th of that gram will be oxidized when placed in
one liter of oxygen saturated water or 1/100 will be oxidized if ten
grams be placed in the same water.

and sulfite will not prevent it.
Neither will storage at low pH.

The two togeather will preserve ascorbic acid if the solution ph
is below 5.5.

1 gram of ascorbic acid is also capable of reducing enough
silver halide to produce an average density of 1 on 38 rolls of film
or 8X10 sheets, ...

I've real doubts about that. I've not actually put 38 rolls or
that many 8x10s through a developer with no more than one gram of
ascorbic acid as the developing agent.
In fact I don't even consider ascorbic acid a developing agent. If
the ph is way way up it will reduce some silver. I think it is best
likend to hydroquinone for it's regenerative function. That is
it reduces the other or other developing agent/agents present.

A way to scavenge
all oxygen from the solution right from the start is needed.

For most solutions I'd consider that more ado about nearly
nothing. Some very dilute solutions should be striped of that
..00845 gram of oxygen.
The usuall way to scavange that O2 is a pinch of sulfite first
than the whatever. For ascorbic acid try the bisulfite. I've
found the two to be harmonious.
Stirring of solutions which are subject to oxidation must be
minimized. Dan