after 15 years, or actually more like almost 18 or 20 years … i am not using ansco 130 developer to process my prints, paper negatives, film or work as an additive in my caffenol c developer. for nearly 2 decades i have used this lovely glycin based developer, at first mistakenly thinking it was GAF UNIVERSAL and then making it my developer of choice. would buy 8 gallons at once, mix them and use them as i needed for a year … then 6 when i stopped printing as much, and then 4 when i started processing everything in caffenol ( or sumatranol ) … well, last year it looks like i bought 4 gallons, and i just ran out, over a year later. … the developer lasts about a year as a stock solution and it was no longer clear, but brown. rather than shell out the big bucks and buy 2 gallons at a time for 25$ plus shipping, i decided to do something really old-school. i mixed up a gallon of dektol. dektol, D72, the developer made famous by kodak … and it seems to be working fine. i have split processed prints with it and i have added some into my caffenol c ( instead of caffenol 130 i think i am going to call it Dcaffenol ) … and i have developed out some paper negatives that look nice too. not bad for 6$ plus maybe 1$ for gas.
i’m also using it to reformulate a reversal developer, so stay tuned !
