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  #11  
Old 27th November 2017, 10:41 PM
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dsallen dsallen is offline
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By the way, I use ADOX ADOFIX Liquid Concentrated Express Fixer 5000ml Concentrate. This costs me 25€ to buy at FotoImpex here in Berlin. I believe that, with shipping to the UK it costs about 36€. So, when you decant correctly you have a much longer life than 3 months and it is, generally speaking, cheaper than making your own up from raw chemicals.

Bests,

David.
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  #12  
Old 28th November 2017, 08:13 AM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dsallen View Post
This is true but you have to factor in that a 5L canister will go off in 3 months. However, if you decant it straight after opening and ensure the smaller bottles are full to the brim you will get a much longer usable life.

The key thing with rapid fixer is that when it smells somewhat acrid or strange it is, for archival purposes at least, dead.

Bests,

David.
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I have used 5 liter bottles of fixer for ever, and I have never had one go off full stop, and I have used them over one to 2 years, at least I have never had a Tetenal Fotospeed or Champion 5 litre bottle go off, and I have yet to use a 5 litre bottle a year to 18 months, also I only decant 1 litre at a time, storing the rest in the 5 litre bottle, last litre good as first, In factI have just checked a 5 litre bottle that I started back in January this year, 2,5 litres left and it smells fine not acrid or strange, it just smells like, well,fixer
Richard

Last edited by Richard Gould; 28th November 2017 at 08:17 AM.
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  #13  
Old 28th November 2017, 10:53 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Gould View Post
I have used 5 liter bottles of fixer for ever, and I have never had one go off full stop, and I have used them over one to 2 years, at least I have never had a Tetenal Fotospeed or Champion 5 litre bottle go off, and I have yet to use a 5 litre bottle a year to 18 months, also I only decant 1 litre at a time, storing the rest in the 5 litre bottle, last litre good as first, In factI have just checked a 5 litre bottle that I started back in January this year, 2,5 litres left and it smells fine not acrid or strange, it just smells like, well,fixer
Richard
Well Richard it sounds like you have been very lucky. I have experienced 5L bottles precipitating (albeit a long time ago with Hypam and Agfa fix) and that is why I always recommend decanting the fixer into glass bottles. Various manufacturers give different advice but all concur on the limited useful life of their rapid fixers once opened:

Agfa Fix Ag: Concentrate in the unopened original packaging: 2 years. Working solution and opened packaging: max. 3 months.

SPRINT RECORD ® SPEED FIXER: RECORD Speed Fixer concentrate, stored with up to 25% air in the container, has a shelf life of at least 2 years.

ILFORD RAPID FIXER: Unopened concentrate, 2 years; opened but capped concentrate, 6 months, 1:4 solution, 7 days.

PHOTOGRAPHERS' FORMULARY TF-4 ARCHIVAL RAPID FIXER: The stock solution which has a shelf life of 1 year is diluted 1:3 to make the working solution. The working solution has a shelf life of 6 months.

ADOX ADOFIX LIQUID CONCENTRATED EXPRESS FIXER 5000 ML: Liquid fixers stay fresh if kept unopened for about 2 years. After opening the concentrate shall be used up within about 3 months. In the case of flockulation or sulfuric fumes the fixer cannot be used anymore.

ILFORD HYPAM 5000 ML: Life - 2 years in full stoppered bottle concentrate / 6 months in half full bottle.

Bests,

David.
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  #14  
Old 28th November 2017, 11:26 AM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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David, if I have been lucky then I have been lucky for the last 20 years at least, I have been buying my fixer in 5 liter bottles for that long, I have had Hypam when it was cheaper, never had problems, but mainly Tetenal and lately Amfix, and I have just looked on a amfix bottle and no warnings about keeping nothing about keeping properties, and in my 60 years of photography I have never had fixer go off ever, and I have used fixers from just about every maker available, including Johnsons of Hendon, Paterson Kodak,ilford,may and baker Amfix (Which used to come with a hardener in a seperate plastic container) Champion Amfix,Tetenal, Ilford Hypam, Agfa,and never had to dispose of any concentrate, never had bad smell sulfric fumes, seperation Ect, my fixer concentrate seem to last forever, maybe the makers are just covering their bases
Richard
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  #15  
Old 28th November 2017, 11:48 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Gould View Post
David, if I have been lucky then I have been lucky for the last 20 years at least, I have been buying my fixer in 5 liter bottles for that long, I have had Hypam when it was cheaper, never had problems, but mainly Tetenal and lately Amfix, and I have just looked on a amfix bottle and no warnings about keeping nothing about keeping properties, and in my 60 years of photography I have never had fixer go off ever, and I have used fixers from just about every maker available, including Johnsons of Hendon, Paterson Kodak,ilford,may and baker Amfix (Which used to come with a hardener in a seperate plastic container) Champion Amfix,Tetenal, Ilford Hypam, Agfa,and never had to dispose of any concentrate, never had bad smell sulfric fumes, seperation Ect, my fixer concentrate seem to last forever, maybe the makers are just covering their bases
Richard
I have had Ilford Hypam deteriorate after 2 years. the fix smelled different and some pale yellow solids formed at the bottom of the solution. I threw it away without trying to see if it still works. I have had a 5 ltr container of Fotospeed FX40 for just over 21/2 years with no degradation at all.
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  #16  
Old 28th November 2017, 12:36 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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When I last ordered my chemicals = 5l bottles of dev, stop and fix, I immediately decanted each into one litre bottles. This was about five years ago! All the chemicals are topped up with some of the can of gas when ever some is used and all work as perfect as the day they were delivered.

I am only now just need to think about reordering.

I do think that using a Nova slot processor has also helped in the equation, with me not having to make up new chemicals each printing session.

Terry S
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  #17  
Old 29th November 2017, 12:29 PM
MikeHeller MikeHeller is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dsallen View Post
This is true but you have to factor in that a 5L canister will go off in 3 months. However, if you decant it straight after opening and ensure the smaller bottles are full to the brim you will get a much longer usable life.

The key thing with rapid fixer is that when it smells somewhat acrid or strange it is, for archival purposes at least, dead.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de
Food for thought!

I am sure I have used Ilford rapid fixer that is older than 3 months both in the concentrated and diluted, 1+4 for film and 1+9 for paper in a nova slot processor, with obvious problems only on a couple of occasions when the fixer in the toaster was particularly old or over used.

I consider the concentrate off when it starts to crystalise out. I change my fixer in the toaster when the area of paper put through is about equivalent to 40 10x8 RC Prints/l (Ilford recommends about equivalent to 80 10x8 RC Prints/l and doesn't differentiate between the dilution used!). For films I chuck it when the clearing time has doubled using the film leader as test.
Mike
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  #18  
Old 29th November 2017, 10:36 PM
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Interesting - I've never once thought of fixer going bad. I've always bought the 5l canisters and have kept working solutions for up to half a year without noticing a change in clearing time or a change in a capacity to hold silver when testing it (I use it for 2 printing sessions for paper and 1+4 for 10 rolls of film, then I do a silver saturation test to check for exhaustion). Of course, if you start noticing visible changes, like precipitation or discolouration, I'd check to be double sure, but no such problems so far.

Also, if you really want to get cheap fix, buy a 5l canister of C-41 fix (fix, bot blix!). I haven't bought it myself but will do next time after hearing about it from colleagues who have used it for ages. It's basically the same stuff, but even cheaper since it's priced for laboratory use without the "hobbyist markup".

And, yes, fixer is one of the things which don't even come close to being worth it mixing your own unless you've got a very, very cheap source of raw chemicals.
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Last edited by maltklaus; 29th November 2017 at 10:41 PM.
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  #19  
Old 20th December 2017, 10:04 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dsallen View Post

....This is true but you have to factor in that a 5L canister will go off in 3 months.......

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de
About storage: My experience is the same as Norm's above. That is, the neutral fixer undiluted keeps for years. (I have used Kodak Flexicolor neutral fixer and the Fujifilm equivalent which are C-41 fixers but fine for all B&W work). With the demise of colour film processing, it's harder to find. I notice that there's a Rollei Neutral Fixer RXN which I will use when I have used my old stocks.
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  #20  
Old 21st December 2017, 12:54 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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As mentioned on previous threads, it is much cheaper to buy bulk fixer in, as it's not economical to make your own. (As for developers, that's a totally different subject, as you may want to try one of the many formulae out there, for various reasons, and will probably be unable to buy it premixed for sale.) To get the most out of bulk fixer, both with usage and price, you really have to decant the 5L of fixer into other smaller (I'd suggest one litre) bottles. I bought a dozen of them off of ebay and they cost very little and are a great investment.

It should be noted that a full and used 5L bottle of fixer may go off after 3 months, as David says above, but I have had my bulk 5L bottle of fixer decanted into smaller bottles 1L bottles, which are topped up with a bit of gas available for the purpose, after each use and they are still good after a number of years. I say years as I am a very light user of my darkroom, something of which I hope to change and use more of in the coming year.

Terry S

PS I've only just realised that there are other replies on page 2 (= including one from myself!) that I didn't initially see before I wrote the rest of this. So some of my findings might be written twice but I stand by them all.

Last edited by Terry S; 21st December 2017 at 12:59 PM.
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