Fixers: how to compare ?

[Joao]

I want to try some homemade recipes for fixers (B&W film).
Obvious questions came to my mynd : what differences can I expect when comparing different recipes ? How can I tell that film fixer A is better than film fixer B ? Are there visible differences immediately after drying the film ? Or only in the long-term ?
Thank you for your input
Joao
PS - Any easy-to-do fixer recipe that you may have sucessfully tried will be welcome. The simpler, the better.
J.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Joao,

They all work. There are no real differences: fixed is fixed.

BUT hardening fixers require far more washing, and plain hypo fixers (not rapid fix) take much longer.

There really is no reason, apart from intellectual curiosity, to make up your own fixer for normal materials.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Joao]

Dear Joao,

They all work. There are no real differences: fixed is fixed.

BUT hardening fixers require far more washing, and plain hypo fixers (not rapid fix) take much longer.

There really is no reason, apart from intellectual curiosity, to make up your own fixer for normal materials.

Cheers,

R.

Thank you for the clear and straightforward reply. Curiosity is really the only motivation.
If I may ask, do you think that fixer recipes from 1950-1960 would work well with recent Ilford BW films ??
Thank you in advance
Joao

 

[Freakscene]

It's slightly more complicated than "they all fix". Ammonium thiosulfate fixers are preferable with modern films and papers because they fix iodides much better than sodium thiosulfate fixers at the usual twice the clearing time. This isn't always apparent until years down the track when your negs start to go dark or your prints go spotty.

Marty

 

[titrisol]

In general all fixer recipes work, however the "faster" fixers, which contain ammonium thiosulfate do the job in 2-5 minutes while the plain thio fixers need 10+ minutes.

IMHO the only way to compare fixers is with the time to clear a strip of film. Then fix at least 2x that (I prefer 3-4x)

IIRC Tmax recommended using rapid fixers for 5 minutes, and normal fixers for 12-15 BUT the catch was that with modern films the fixers had to be discarded very quickly since the iodine and other additives present tend to accelerate the decomposition of thiosulfate.