Rodinal Problem

[lesged]

I flew from Massachusetts to Florida Jan 1st. My car was picked up several days before and was left outdoors in freezing or near freezing temperatures in the car transport lot before it was driven to St. Augustine. In the car was packed the concentrated liquid solutions to be used for b&w film processing: Sprint Acid Fixer, Kodak Fotoflo, Kodak HC110 and Rodinal. I put some plastic foam around them for insulation.

The only liquid  that has presented problems is Rodinal. I have used this developer  for 50  years and never have seen what it has done since arriving here in St. Augustine. I should explain the concentrate I put in my car was a mixture of two bottles of Rodinal I bought from Freestyle. The older bottle was nearly empty when I opened the new bottle and poured in ~300 ml of the fresh Rodinal. I have not only heard about the legendary longevity of this developer of the 19th century, but used some very old Rodinal, in a pinch, that was at least 20 years old and the results were A-OK.

Here is what happened the first time I planned to use my Rodinal  in early January:  I made a  250ml of a 1:50 solution and was tempering it while I prepared other solutions. I filled a large rectangular plastic container with water brought to  @ 20C.

I started to pre-rinse the film (either Fuji Acros or Neopan 400) and checked the temp of the water I drained from the tank till it reached 20C and then was ready to pour the Rodinal solution into the loaded tank. I had set the timer for 11 or 11.5 minutes,  I was at the verge of pouring it in when I saw the pinkish liquid was loaded with particulates (if that's the right term) i.e. hundreds of small, dark, solid, pieces suspended/floating in the graduate. It didn't look that way when I made the 1:50 solution 10 minutes earlier; it was clear then.

I had a moment of panic thinking I'll ruin the negatives with all this junk in the Rodinal. Some reasoning came into play and I filled the tank with water and let it stand till I could strain the junk out of the Rodinal by passing it through a cotton ball in a funnel. When it was clear, I rechecked temp and  started the development cycle. The negs looked good enough to scan, but not as good as I expected from whichever of the two Fuji  film I had souped in Rodinal.

What was perplexing was after the development cycle was over and I saw in the glass graduate the Rodinal, I just used, the same kinds of foreign particles floating in it. While writing this thread, I looked at the remaining Rodinal that I just poured into a clear glass graduate the entire contents of the bottle. It look OK, but I strained it to see if there were any of those unwanted particles in the concentrate. There weren’t any!

Any explanation for the strange stuff I saw several times in the Rodinal I shipped down to Florida? ?  Has anyone else ever seen similar particle floating in your Rodinal working solution ?

[LarryD]

Filter them out and all is fine. I have had stuff in worse shape.

[Julio1fer]

I've never seen this, Les. I understand you saw the particles in the 1:50 solution but not in the concentrate, right? 

If so,  I'd bet on the water as source of the problem.  You could try using distilled water next time to eliminate that variable.

It is unlikely that the cold made anything to the Rodinal. It takes more than that.

[br1078lum]

Saw a t-shirt the other day that said "If You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Precipitate".  :cool:  I'd go with the water causing your clumping due to suspended minerals Les.  Like Julio sugested, try distilled water.

PF

[lesged]

Thanks Larry, Julio and Phil for your comments and advice.

If I see the precipitate again, I will switch to distilled water. I know many people have recommended using distilled water for making the developer's working solution and/or for the last rinse.

What puzzles me is for the last 15 winters, I've been using St. Augustine water at the same condo and never had any problem with particles in Rodinal. I'm using the same water with the HC110 concentrate and have no precipitates. I've been lucky since I started developing film at age 12  to have lived in places where I processed film that needed any special treatment to the running water. I gave up using a stop bath for film development 30-40 years ago. I use a water rinse instead.

I have another month left on our snow bird wintering over season. I had stopped using Rodinal, but will resume this week on a test roll, because I prefer Rodinal to HC110.

Thanks again guys!

[br1078lum]

The deeper they pump those aquifers Les, who knows what is coming up the pipes anymore.

PF

[LarryD]

That and just like us humans the plumbing starts to collect things on the sides.

[titrisol]

rodinal is a saturated/supersaturated solution
If the crud was pink/purple you are fine; just decant next time.

[LarryD]

Using the syringe it is real hard to extract the solids out for me. I recently just ran mine through a little screen not even a coffee filter and it got all the crystals out jet still works like new.