Marbles Lots of Marbles

[jonathan_brown]

When I bought my darkroom kit, it came with a lot of steel marbles,

Like 5 bags. They dude said I should use them to keep my chemicals

fresh. But he didn't go into a lot of detail. Are the marbles to

help stir when I shake the bottle, do they do something else. Are

their many of you who use this method. I use my darkroom about

everyother day, so am I going to need to use them at all or not. If

someone could just give a general explaination I think it would

really benefit me, and maybe some others.

 

Thanks

Jonathan

[jim_appleyard]

I'm assuming those are stainless steel marbles. I'm not sure what reaction regular steel marbles would have in darkroom chemistry. I use glass marbles to take up air space in my bottles. Oxygen is the enemy of film and paper developers and perhaps to some extent fixer. I would suggest that you don't shake, but stir, your chemistry. Shaking leads to more rapid oxidation.

[jonathan_brown]

Yeah They are stainless steel. But I steel don't get what you mean buy the take up oxygen. Yeah I mean stir, not sake up.

[jonathan_brown]

Do you mean you use the marbles to fill the liquid in the bottle all the way to the tope to get rid of the air, so the marbles act like a displacer. Maybe.

[pat_wilson1]

Yes. They are used to take up space in chemical bottles so that there is as little air in the bottles as possible. Oxygen combines with developers, mostly, and breaks them down. Stop bath and fixer are not nearly as vunerable to this.

[conrad_hoffman]

Don't combine metal bearings and glass bottles. Sooner or later you'll have broken glass and a bit mess. I've tried the marble trick. It works, but it's way too much of a PITA! Just get some smaller bottles and divide your developer up into amounts that can be used quickly once opened.

[the_macman]

Sincerely, how long do you people keep chemistry bottles in order to bother with marbles?

 

IMHO, marbles are only useful for powder developers, not liquid.

 

As a vague and general rule, I try to use the whole bottle under six months. Some very few

developers specify 3 but quite frankly you'd have amazing eyes if you could see a

degradation even after 6 months. People are way too frightened about oxidation than they

should be. First off, not every developer is prone to it... some degrade by other means,

such as complexation. Those expire with out without marbles but again, "expiration"

shouldn't make ppl so afraid. Most expired devs work great even months after their due

date. Don't forget that the dates manufacturers publish are very conservative for liability

reasons.

 

If you don't plan to empty it within a few months or less... just mix less. I realize this is

hard to do with powder, they often come in bags for 5, 10 liters & +. So people spread

them in a few bottles with marbles, because you don't want to bother with a precision

scale. This is why I say that only ppl using powder devs should use them.

 

With liquid, it's much easier to measure the needed quantity. So plan in advance. As for

stock liquid, they expiration dates are most of the time very generous.

 

Anyway, try to avoid the hassle. If you can't, have fun with them :)

[the_macman]

Shake the bottle as much as you want if you're talking about shaking it right before using

the chemistry. Oxidation is a slow process, it takes time. Even if you're offering such a

broad contact chemistry and oxygen it doesn't have the time to degrade the chemistry if

you're pouring it right away, or in the next half-hour, in the next dev't session, etc.

 

If you mix to keep, you'd better stir.

[the_macman]

>>>> I use my darkroom about everyother day, so am I going to need to use them at all

or not.

 

Let's say: at least once a week? Then definitely NO for reasons I've explained.

 

Dev: well, I suppose so, if you keep many devs among which you use some very rarely. But

if you have only a favourite one, or many which go fast, no way you need careful stocking

techniques.

 

Stop: take the Kodak Indicator Stop, for instance, and calculate the cost of a liter of the

final working solution... it will give you an indication if it's worth making efforts for its

conservation.

 

Fix: mix as needed, only for one development session. You can uncap and recap the stock

bottle as often as you want. Fix is not very prone to oxidation.

[jim_appleyard]

Jonathan

 

Yes, the marbles are simply used to diplace air. I don't find the marbes a PITA, but I do agree that putting your chem. into smaller bottles is easier.

 

I do the marble thing only as a precaution. Most of the time I used a dev. up very quickly and it doesn't sit around very long. However there have been times...

 

In case you were wondering, there's no need to put marbles in the stop bath. And yes, a little extra caution is needed when using the marbles and even more with the steel ones. So far, no mishaps (as he knocks on wood!)

[robert_davis2]

"Sincerely, how long do you people keep chemistry bottles in order to bother with marbles?"

 

I've got a bottle of print developer that might be two years old. Older? I just replenish every so often. I wouldn't do that with film developer but for prints things are different.

 

The marbles I guess are an attempt to have something like a floating lid.

 

A very old trick with wine was to float a little oil on the top. Oil and wine don't mix so if you draw off the bottom the oil would keep the air from touching the wine.

[glenn_thoreson]

It's a lot easier to just displace the air in a bottle with a good shot of canned air (Dust Off or whatever) which does not contain air at all.Divide your chemicals into smaller bottles and avoid mixing more than you can use within a reasonable period of time. I would be very worried about using any type of metal marbles.

[__jon__]

Try to use your chemicals up before you need to resort to marbles. I like HC110 for just that reason: one-shot preparation. Also, I've read several of your posts. Would you mind putting question marks (?) on your sentences that are questions? Not only is it correct English, but it makes the questions much easier to read.

[patrick_gainer]

i DON'T KNOW FROM MARBLES. i LOST ALL MINE WHEN i TURNED 70.

[john_stockdale2]

Buy a number of little glass laboratory bottles with glass stoppers in whatever size you use in one batch. They will cost you a bit, but I've had 30 years use out of mine. Mine are 125mL, since I dilute 1+1 for a 250mL tank. The glass stoppers will be hard to remove if the developer is left too long, say 12 months.

 

Or use PMK, which lasts at least 3 years in a half filled bottle with a leaky lid.

 

Glass marbles are often used to displace air in partly used bottles of very expensive cognac and armagnac, but they are a considerable nuisance in my experience.

[ramiro_aceves]

Hi

I found glass marbles great for my developers. I store D76 at 1:1 dilution in four 250 cm3 bottles. I use marbles to fill the bottle to the brim. Also I use them for Rodinal 250 cm3 original bottle, although Rodinal has got good keeping properties, I have noticed a little decrease in strenght when it gets darker. With marbles, always clear, no problems.

Good luck.

[ramiro_aceves]

Sorry, I made a mistake, I store D-76 at stock dilution.

[jonathan_brown]

Yeah man I will watch the question marks from now on. Sorry.

[michael_schiller]

Somebody mentioned an old trick of pouring some oil into wine, would the same work for

photo chemicals? I have 1.25 liter bottles that I store my chemicals in that sit very nicely

on a shelf (picture below), and have a spigot on the bottom, and I had thought of using

either oil, or perhaps an oil/wax mixture to float on top of the chemicals.

 

The next thing would be refilling the bottles when they're almost empty. Would the oil

need to be drained first, or would the developer go right thru it with no problem?<div></div>

[patrick_gainer]

You'd have to try it. Mineral oil would probably be the best bet. Some developers might be able to dissolve or at least emulsify the oil. Some developers might be less dense than the oil, though I doubt it. If the oil just floats, then when you refill, the developer will go to the bottom. It may take a while for the oil and developer to separate.