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  #1  
Old 14th March 2020, 05:57 PM
Quendil Quendil is offline
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Default Marbles

Quite a few people recommend using marbles for keeping chemicals in bottles topped up so I have a couple of questions

Does it matter if the marbles have the coloured bits in them or do they need to be clear?

Those of you that use them is this for mixed chemicals, stock liquid chemicals or both? (I use mostly Ilford liquid chemicals)

Thanks
David
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Old 14th March 2020, 07:11 PM
mpirie mpirie is offline
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No difference in function whether there's coloured centres or not, though those with the coloured centres will be easier to see :-)

They can be used for both concentrate and dilute chemicals.

Mike
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Old 14th March 2020, 07:18 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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From what I recall the coloured bits are inside the glass so No, I can't see this matters. The problem I found when I toyed with the idea of using marbles is that in containers with wide necks such as print developer containers is that you eventually need an awful lot of marbles to take the place of air in the ever increasing space and as most of such containers are plastic then the weight of the marbles may give the container structures problems. At the end of the container's contents you then have the job of decanting all the marbles and rinsing with water and then placing them back into the box from whence they came n

Film developers tend to be in smaller containers but essentially the same problems prevail. On balance and I appreciate that this is answering your question of how to get from A to B by saying "don't start from A", I'd use either winebags for the likes of 5L of say MG developer or for film developer decant the stock be that from powder or liquid into 125 or 250 ml glass bottles or even smaller if it happens to be the likes of DDX with a dilution of 1+4, fill to the very top and use all at once.

Mike
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Old 14th March 2020, 09:35 PM
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The coloured bits are glass too, so no problem either way. But as Mike says, you need a surprisingly large number of marbles to make up for more than a few ccs of chemical.

Given that the space around a sphere is nearly the same as the volume of the sphere, you can't do better than replace 50% of the developer's volume anyway. In practice, I found that once a bottle is more than about 25-30% consumed it becomes impractical as the number of marbles increases to the point where you seem to have far more marbles than developer in the bottle...


I did start from there once; I won't be using that starting point again
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Old 15th March 2020, 10:30 AM
Quendil Quendil is offline
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Thanks all,

Think I will forget the marble idea. I do have a 5L wine bag just need to find something clean I can mix 5L up in.
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Old 15th March 2020, 11:38 AM
alexmuir alexmuir is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quendil View Post
Thanks all,

Think I will forget the marble idea. I do have a 5L wine bag just need to find something clean I can mix 5L up in.


I bought a plastic bucket specifically for that. It works well.
Alex


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Old 15th March 2020, 12:24 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Originally Posted by alexmuir View Post
I bought a plastic bucket specifically for that. It works well.
Alex
I saw in store recently, that B&Q do a bucket in their trade colour orange, selling for £0.99 I believe. It'll hold much more than 5 litres for sure.

Oh, and what ever you end up using, use it for on purpose only.

Terry S

CORRECTION! = bucket is only £0.97!

https://www.diy.com/departments/oran.../257478_BQ.prd
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Old 15th March 2020, 02:06 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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The only issue with a coloured container i.e. a non translucent one might be when using it to make up say 5L of powder print developer or indeed 5L of fim developer such as Xtol. Usually the instructions say to top up to 5L after the powder is mixed so unless you have made a mark at the right level or have visible vol marks then knowing where on the container is say 5L is difficult

What i find useful is the kind of buckets that are used for fatballs for birds. When empty I keep it then measure 5L of water into it and mark the line on the outside with a permanent black marker pen and use that for mixing. Once the powder is mixed simply top up to the line and then decant into winebags or full bottle of varying sizes that can be emptied in one go.

Mike
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Old 15th March 2020, 02:27 PM
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When I was a kid in the 1960s we used to wait for the drain cleaning tanker to come. The roadside cast iron grates were lifted and a huge suction pipe was inserted, after a lot of noise out came the pipe, job done, our moment came. "Mr., my marbles went down that grate, can you have a look for them please". The man operating the pump would look in his filter and fish out all the marbles, "ta mister" and off we went to play. We never washed them, maybe a quick rub to dry them on the grass that was it we never caught any nasty bugs or Wiels disease. Our other free source of marbles came from watching dad digging the garden waiting for a marble to be revealed as the earth was turned over. Back on topic, my wife has taken to drinking the mini sized bottles of wine, the small bottles are ideal for storing developer, also wine bottle vacuum pumps work very well.
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  #10  
Old 15th March 2020, 03:50 PM
Quendil Quendil is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike O'Pray View Post
The only issue with a coloured container i.e. a non translucent one might be when using it to make up say 5L of powder print developer or indeed 5L of fim developer such as Xtol. Usually the instructions say to top up to 5L after the powder is mixed so unless you have made a mark at the right level or have visible vol marks then knowing where on the container is say 5L is difficult

What i find useful is the kind of buckets that are used for fatballs for birds. When empty I keep it then measure 5L of water into it and mark the line on the outside with a permanent black marker pen and use that for mixing. Once the powder is mixed simply top up to the line and then decant into winebags or full bottle of varying sizes that can be emptied in one go.

Mike
I looked at the fat balls containers my wife has but my son got first dibs. I shall wait till she gets some more

David
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