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reusing tetenal chems


alan_ennis

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I was just wondering.. I've just started developing my own c-41 films and I am using the tetenal c-41 3x1L powder kit. I am wondering if anybody knows if I can reuse the bleach and/or stabiliser. generally I dont reuse developer in b&w so i don't intend to do it in color either. Any body got any ideas or suggetions? I plan to start using the liquid kits so that I dont have to mix a whole batch or wait till i have enough film to use the whole 1 litre.

 

Cheers for any assistance.

Alan

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I'm not sure about reusing the blix. I would guess to not reuse it, since consistency is already a problem with c-41. I know with reversal processes that use bleach, it shouldn't be reused, so I'm likely to extend it to c-41 as well. I've also heard that when a company combines the bleach and fixer into the blix bath they do so to save money, not shelflife.
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Are you talking about the Tetenal Press Kit? The instructions

describe re-use of the chemistry. There's a slightly longer

time for re-use of the color developer, but I've forgotten the

details for the other steps.

<p>

If you don't intend to re-use the color developer, and you've

got exactly the same amount of chemistry for each step, it

sounds like you could just use all of the chemicals as

one-shot.

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bleach is often the most expensive part of color chemistry, and is reused in commercial processing sometimes.... check the instructions--it would vary with the type of chemistry, but in E6 bleach can be reused, but often has to be aerated. Some of the developers can be reused by replenishing with the proper chemistry, or adding onto the times...for low-volume, one-shot is probably the best though, because you'll wind up with odd lots of chemistry left over, and you need to running a certain amount of film to make it work consistently. fwiw, we one-shot E6 (have a bypass to reclaim the bleach & fix though) on our processor, but reuse & replenish all the b&w chemistry in our lab. The film chem gets used for a month, and the print chem for 2 weeks....it works really well if you keep up with it. btw--you're not going to get any more life out of the concentrates--once they're opened, you'll have less than a month probably to use them up. The most cost effective to do it, is to save up the film & batch process it all at one time, or just buy the amount you need & mix that up. I'd probably one-shot the final rinse (stabilizer) too, just to keep the film clean. I don't do C41 that much anymore, but in E6 the developers are extremely sensitive to oxidation and contamination, so if you reuse them, you need to be very clean with your process. If you use a tube processor, I'd probably say just one-shot the whole thing...hope this helps.
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Cheers all.. probably just gonna have to let the film build up and then get it all done in a day or so.

I dont think it is the the press kit. Or at least it doesnt say so on the box. it's a 3x1L box.. i dunno it's proabaly the same as the press kit.

 

Thanks for your thoughts though

Alan

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