expired d76

I think I never had a bakelite tank.

Then you've not experienced the peculiar, yet not unpleasant, smell emitted by a bakelite tank in contact with developer. "A la recherche du temps perdu."

Then you've not experienced the peculiar, yet not unpleasant, smell emitted by a bakelite tank in contact with developer. "A la recherche du temps perdu."

I guess not.

It reminds me, though, of the unique smell of roll film backing paper, which I had almost

forgotten but not quite, after so many years. It is especially interesting that there is something

volatile enough to smell, yet doesn't affect the film over many years. Maybe it is just the

Kodak backing paper smell.

But if I found a 122 tank for a good price, I might buy one, and likely it would be bakelite.

Then you've not experienced the peculiar, yet not unpleasant, smell emitted by a bakelite tank in contact with developer. "A la recherche du temps perdu."

I haven't thought about Bakelite for a while, so was reading the Wikipedia article about it. It seems that Baekeland is also the inventor of Velox. I remember Kodak Velox, but I suspect, like many others, that it was bought by Kodak and then kept its name. It was the first paper that I used, though not so much after I got an enlarger. In any case, since it is a phenolic compound, I will guess that the smell is phenol related. That is also the smell we usually note for burning electronic equipment, as they have, or at least used to have, enough phenolic parts. Among others, popular for cheaper (than epoxy glass) printed circuit boards.

<p>I have an un-opened package of Kodak d-76 developer (powder)-- makes 1 liter, stock. The expiration date is 2011 - 10. (I guess that means October, 2011.) Am wondering if it is still good. </p>

I don't know how much that package would cost today but back in the late 70's when I did some B&W it was very cheap. I would not use expired developer because films are too expensive now to risk using iffy developer.