Photo Chemistry Storage

The best thing I've ever found to keep air out of solutions to prolong their storage life are plastic Cubitainers...(the

things that Sprint Systems package their products in) with spigot caps. As the solution is gradually

used..atmospheric pressure squeezes the container in so air stays out. This dramatically prolongs the life of any

kind of oxygen sensitive solution. Before he died several years ago I was fortunate to talk my good friend and

mentor Paul Krot into selling me a supply of new, unused, empty Cubitainers, but I will need new ones @ some

point soon. Apparently Paul went thru a lot to get access to them originally when he designed Sprint packaging (I

believe they are made by Heico)..so Sprint is still (very understandably) reluctant to go into the empty container

business. If anyone can locate a source for new, unused Cubitainers..with or without the boxes..they would be

doing the Photo world a major favor...Anyone???

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-- C Matter (cmatter@riag.com), April 22, 1999.

I use Air-Evaq's. Why do they have to be new Charlie? I'm trying to

imagine a wing-ding surrounded on all sides with new cubitaners and I

can't see it! Just wouldn't look right.

1 Gal Cubitainers work better. I want them to be new and

unused because plastic tends to absorb (slowly) a little bit of the

chemistry. Putting a developer in a used plastic container,

regardless of how much it is rinsed out, runs a contamination risk

Try stores that sell supplies for amateur wine-makers. Some of them

carry Cubitainers without boxes.

In Europe there's a product called Vacu-vin. It's a rubber cork with a

split in it through which you can suck the air out of the bottle with

a little pump. People use it here to conserve their wine. Many

doka-workers I know use it for their chemistry, stored in one-liter

old wine bottles. For me, it's a better method than storage in

collapsable plastic bottles, because you can use glass bottles, which

I trust more.

You can get collapsible containers from laboratory supply companies

such as Cole-Parmer. I checked my catalog and the containers come in

1 quart, 1 gallon, and 5 gallon sizes. The price for the 1 gallon

size was 4.95. However, this does not include the spigot, and

spigots only come in packages of 12 (24.95 for 12). Also, unlike the

old cubitaners, they do not have the cardboard box to surround them.

There are cardboard shipping boxes for them that look like they could

be easily modified. If you have a Van Waters & Rogers (usually lised

as VWR Scientific Products in the phone book) outlet nearby, you also

might want to check with them.

I did not know that Paul Krot had died, he was a teacher of mine about

twenty years ago...