Hello; as Cumulo, I'd like to introduce myself as a person in the slow process returning to darkroom photography after a long hiatus. I started with my father, developing images taken on a 2-1/4 x 3-1/4, I believe it was nice Voigtlander view camera. I took an intro to darkroom photography (to learn about newer materials, and to use a darkroom for I no longer had one, three years ago. I'm in the slow process of setting out a darkroom with plumbing, filtration for pollutants, various working light wavelengths, a Bessler 67S, and a Omega D-2 (WWII era and an old litho enlarger to copy 135 negatives or medium format to 4X5. Cameras include a B&J press, a Technica IV, a Rochester 8X10 in rebuild process, and numerous Nikon, Pentax, Mamiya and Minolta medium format, and home-made Krankenkameras for pinhole and very small aperture work, contact print presses, etc. I had saved the chemicals from my father's technical use from the 1940s and 1950s, and have used up much of that. Still, I have too much chromate, bichromate and other toxic stuff, so much is in locked metal cabinets for safety. I'm presently interested in home-made fixer solutions that might use a combo of Sodium thioslulfate (old slow hypo) plus sodium sulfite, to make it an acid fixer, plus the right amount of boric acid to buffer the solution. Anybody have actual experience in how much of the boric acid would be beneficial with the Na thiosulfate and Na sulfite?
