[Noisebridge-discuss] Chemistry at Noisebridge

Fri Mar 26 19:49:55 UTC 2010

May I suggest something?

The more you can decrease the surface area of a liquid tank (fixer), and less time processing chemicals are "uncovered", the less volatilized fixer you'll have in the air.  It will also last longer, due to reduced oxidation, and require smaller volumes (i.e. be cheaper).  Perhaps noise-bridge should use vertical loading processing tanks.  Think of many sheets of acrylic, upright surrounded by a box (pretty cheapo). 

I could design such an object if needed, but haven't the resources to buy it for NB.

-moo 

On Mar 26, 2010, at 7:36 AM, Jasmine Strong wrote:

> Dye transfers work with Fuji FP-100B and FP-100C films-  I have done several, they work very nicely.
> 
> I could bring my PolaPrinter over if anyone has some 35mm slides they'd like to turn into transfers?
> 
> -J.
> 
> On 25 Mar 2010, at 23:35, Mark Cohen wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Ha! Silver Halide Daguerrotype?! ptew! If its not deadly, its not worth doing :) (And its got Mercury!!11!!!11) 
>> 
>> From what I recall cyanotype smells like wet dog right?
>> 
>> If I'm ever able to get Polaroid 59, and people are interested, I can give a demonstration on Polaroid Transfers.. Used to do a class for Polaroid back in the early 90s when it was still "cool" :)
>> 
>> Mark
>> 
>> 
>> On Mar 25, 2010, at 11:02 PM, Kelly wrote:
>> 
>>> Mark is correct - in BW development, fixer is really all you need to
>>> worry about.  The sink we're installing in the darkroom has a second
>>> smaller basin that we'll be using for disposal of chemicals.  Fixer or
>>> whatever else we end up using in there.  Some of the non-photographic
>>> chemistry we do eventually may require special disposal, although I
>>> think if we get around to daguerreotypes (which we most likely will)
>>> we'll go the silver halide route instead (new! Less poison!).  There
>>> are currently no plans to do color development in the darkroom, and if
>>> we do, we'll have to re-evaluate the setup.
>>> 
>>> I'll be doing some cyanotype in the next week or two.  From what I
>>> understand, it smells notably unpleasant, but it's not particularly
>>> dangerous.
>>> 
>>>> That sounds amazing :) Noisebridge for Kids! Corey McGuire
>>>> <coreyfro at coreyfro.com> also mentioned something about a kids-oriented
>>>> activity that involved making fridge magents, or something of the
>>>> sort.
>>> 
>>> Ben and Jonathan and I were planning to do a (ahem) dry run on the ph
>>> project this saturday although I'm now realising that I'll probably be
>>> at the exploratorium most of the day that day for Open:Make so maybe
>>> not after all.  Anyway, keep your eyes peeled, we'll announce a date a
>>> couple weeks out for that.  It's a very safe activity, as long as the
>>> acids and bases you test are reasonable.
>>> 
>>>> On a side note, if you have a Polaroid SX70 or a 600, you might want to dust it off, the Impossible Project has done the Impossible :) They're making and selling Polaroid film again.
>>> 
>>> Indeed. There's been the occasional buzz on the darkroom list about
>>> polaroid, and I suspect that will increase now.  We've had two
>>> polaroid cameras donated, and one of these days we're going to have a
>>> workshop / presentation from miss Jas--polaroidist extraordinaire.  I
>>> know that for several of us, a major reason to build the darkroom has
>>> been to make film, and learning about instant film seems like a good
>>> pre-req.
>>> 
>>> -Kelly
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 22:25, Mark Cohen <markc at binaryfaith.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I think as a project, that's a great idea!
>>>> 
>>>> A thought or two might complicate things :)
>>>> 
>>>> The amount of silver that you will reclaim with that is very little, it takes multiple cycles to get enough to scrape off and reclaim. In the mean time, you will have fixer sitting in a bucket.... For weeks or months. :) I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to smell fixer all the time. Its the one chemical that I always notice on my hands and clothes after processing.. for hours :)  They even used to make special soap that you can use to get the fixer smell off you.
>>>> 
>>>> For what its worth, I used to mix my own pyro and develop film/paper by hand in the crap (brown fingers and all) (Pyrogallol and Pyro Metol, and Hydroquinone based) and I still smelled the fixer on my hands :)
>>>> 
>>>> Here is a decent post about electrolytic silver recovery : http://www.pneac.org/sheets/all/silver.cfm
>>>> 
>>>> When I worked as a pro darkroom tech (b/w paper, film and color transparency development and printing) we used to use silver reclamation. As I recall, even with all of the film and paper fixer as well as bleach-fix we put through there, we ran it for days on each batch and barely pulled out any silver sludge. As films improve (t-grain) the major design decision was for the companies to use less silver in the materials. This is why they pushed so hard on C-41 monochromatic films like T400CN and Ilford XP2.
>>>> 
>>>> On a side note, if you have a Polaroid SX70 or a 600, you might want to dust it off, the Impossible Project has done the Impossible :) They're making and selling Polaroid film again.
>>>> 
>>>> I can't wait for the 59! :)
>>>> 
>>>> Mark
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mar 25, 2010, at 7:14 PM, Meredith L. Patterson wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Mark Cohen wrote:
>>>>>> the Harvey Milk Photo center used to take used fixer and have it dealt with properly (removed the silver
>>>>> 
>>>>> Audrey and I had been kicking around the idea of electrolytically removing the silver from used fixer, for, you know, whatever anyone might want blobs of silver for.
>>>>> 
>>>>> --mlp
>>>> 
>>>> Mark Cohen
>>>> markc at binaryfaith.com
>>>> 
>>>> Science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
>>>> -Carl Sagan, 1996
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>> 
>> Mark Cohen
>> markc at binaryfaith.com
>> 
>> Science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
>> -Carl Sagan, 1996
>> 
> 
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