Did I just ruin a fresh mix of Diafine "A" solution?

Souped my first B&W today, a roll of Plus X in Diafine. Negs came out

sweet, very excited about my future devloping my own films.

 

However... and I just realized this, hours after it's happened... when

I finished my "A" & "B" soak, I poured the solution back into my main

stock. How badly did I just screw up? I mean, no B went into A, the

apparently cardinal sin of Diafine abuse, but have I totally fried my

restock by pouring the A back into A and the used B into B stock?

 

Fingers crossed....

 

 

Thanks very much.

Craig

Not at all! As long as you have not contaminated Part A with Part B you are fine. Diafine is meant to be reused many times over. One of the qualities of this developer is its extremely long life. You can use it over and over again and it keeps on working. It will discolor, but this is of no significance. When you lose about 1/4 to 1/3 the original amount, or you don't have enough to cover your films, drain off enough Part B to match the volume of Part A and replenish both with the addition of some fresh stock and keep on going.

Thanks!

I typically use Diafine (gallon kit) for over a year, (with hundreds of sheets) filtering through a white coffee filter when needed. You will find that your Bath A will deplete faster because of carry over... just mix up a small Qt kit and replenish for volume loss!

Craig:

 

What ASA did you shoot the Plus-X?

 

 

Andrew

Oh, BTW, CE -- welcome to the "dark" side. Next thing you know, you'll be buying metol and hydroquinone and looking for a scale to mix your own Divided D-76. :)

Thanks, Donald.

<p/>

Andrew, you can see the results <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00B4pg">here</a>. Camera was a Holga in this case, so exposure was slower, 1/60th or so I imagine.

Good tip, that filter, Scott. I will cut my main stocks into quarts, use the fresh to refill the old, and already aware of the A depleting faster due to carry.

 

I cant wait to have time to do it again.

Soda bottles make good working containers - eliminating the potential of ruining larger volumes of stock. Sixteen ounce bottles are big enough to supply most roll tanks.

I also agree witht he soda bottles. The nicest thing about them is that if you are using a precarious developer that oxidizes easily, you can squeeze the sides of the bottles as your use them, bringing the water level to RIGHT at the lip, and you can then cap them tightly and there isn't any movement in the liquid and very little air in there also!

After using green soda bottles for a while, I decided to use peroxide and bleach bottles.

Peroxide is cheap, bottles are thicker and brown already.

 

I also resuse the spent developer bottles (Agfa, Ilford and such)

Just don't do what I did...and pour your used B back into the A container. Luckily I had divided my gallon out into several containers, so only one container was contaminated. I usually screw the lid back onto the A bottle as soon as I'm finished pouring it back in. This time I didn't, and I even left my funnel sticking out of it, so when it came time to pour the B solution out, I just instinctively poured it into that bottle. Grrr!