i got the kinks out of coating plates and metal the other night.
it seems my water wasn’t hot enough to melt the gelatin completely .. so i turned up the hot water heater
and within a half hour my bottled emulsion was as runny as water. i poured 4 small plates 3 4×5 tins and a 4×5 glass plate.
it was easier than it has ever been … and today i had a lot of things to play with to try to get the kinks out of my
shooting and developing.
until today, my images have been hit or miss. no real rhyme or reason why they came out or didn’t come out. i guess
you might call it luck. today i made 6 exposures using black paper negatives, and most of the metal plates i coated yesterday.
the way i mixed the developer was to dole out what i needed and not have it all mixed up at once. i had 1L of stock dektol, and the other ingredients – 2 tbs of the white powder and 15cc of the liquid and 2oz of dektol to mix and get 8oz at a time as needed THAT was my problem…
the first two … nothing worked … 30+ seconds exposed in the back of an agfa sure shot ( it seems f13 )
i poured out a little straight dektol into a tray and put an exposed paper in there, then in the magic developer, and it worked.
i did this with a few plates, and they worked, and eventually i mixed the dektol with the magic developer …
the reversal additives ( powder and liquid ) were not strong enough to counteract the dektol, and i got negatives not positives when
i exposed my last sheets of paper..
later on, i mixed the rest of the dektol and powder and liquid and made 330cc of stock developer so i wouldn’t have to deal with mixing small amounts. i later exposed 2 plates. i used a cyclone 3 … but its small aperture proved to be too much and they didn’t come out as i had hoped.
i’ll use a faster lens the next time around, so my exposures are short and easier to deal with.
