Home-Brew Acetaminophen Rodinal Works!

[ZorkiKat]

Used it to develop Chinese generic ISO 100 BW film exposed in my
Leica M3 with a Jupiter-3. Subjects were my studio cats. Cats,
being furry and frisky, are the best readily available test targets
for testing resolution, focus, film grain, etc. This Chinese BW
film is by nature mushy.

The film was developed at 1+75 dilution (I initially planned 1+50,
but added too much water in the mix), using Agfa Rodinal
instructions. The resulting negative was a bit on the thin side, a
bit underdeveloped since I did not have a starting point for the
developing time for 1+75. Looking at the negatives, they look every
bit like similar Chinese generic BW films I developed in real Agfa
rodinal. Better Chinese BW film like Lucky pan will certainly develop with better quality in terms of grain and sharpness. The generic I used seems to have the older-type emulsions of the 1950s.

The developer is fermenting in the way the recipe described it.
It's getting darker at the top. The original Tabasco sauce colour
is going Coca cola.

The test negatives can be seen here:

http://pusangputi.multiply.com/photos/album/8

Jay

 

[oftheherd]

Where or what is this secret forumula?

 

[ZorkiKat]

Where or what is this secret forumula?

It 's at post #9 by "titrisol" in this thread

"favorite films in rodinal"

 

[ZorkiKat]

"Used it to develop Chinese generic ISO 100 BW film exposed in my
Leica M3 with a Jupiter-3."

Is this the unlabelled 'Lucky' brand, recently made world-wide available courtesy of Kodak?


😉

It's not Lucky. Lucky and this film are as different as cotton and wool. 😉

The local spooler won't give details. The edges aren't even numbered or labelled, though the characters "中国" (China) sometimes (more, rarely) appears.

I like this film for its 'old' texture. Using it with old rangefinders gives that old
classic candid camera look.

I've used Lucky extensively (both the BW and colour emulsions) when we had it here. Local importer went out of business. The BW emulsions were really of high quality. Tones, particularly skin tones, tend to be pearly, taking on an almost lumnious quality. It has extended red sensitivity, and can create psuedo RF looks when overdeveloped a bit. It lacks (has an inefficient) an anti-halo layer, but this can be exploited to creative ends.
🙂
Jay

 

[XAos]

Oh great, now we're gonna have to sign for OTC acetominophen as well. Halfway seriously, you might want to vary your purchase locations, lest someone think you've discovered a new way to make meth or some other drug.

 

[Bill K.]

Hi G'man,

Thanks for posting this formula. I just need a point clarified. The "Red Devil" lye, is that not the source of Sodium Hydroxide and not the Sulfite ?

Please understand that I'm not being critical, just wanted this point clarified.

This formula certainly looks easy to make with very easily obtained ingredients. What with all that acetaminophen, it may even solve some nasty darkroom headaches. 😀 😀

Best regards,


Bill K.

 

[wlewisiii]

Pity that I don't want to have acetaminophen in my house. It's way too easy to OD and destroy your liver with that particular chemical. Still, I suppose if I bought a small bottle and made up a batch such that there was none left over... Hmm...

William

 

[ZorkiKat]

Hi G'man,

Thanks for posting this formula. I just need a point clarified. The "Red Devil" lye, is that not the source of Sodium Hydroxide and not the Sulfite ?

Please understand that I'm not being critical, just wanted this point clarified.

This formula certainly looks easy to make with very easily obtained ingredients. What with all that acetaminophen, it may even solve some nasty darkroom headaches. 😀 😀

Best regards,


Bill K.

Bill

Sodium Hydroxide (caustic soda, lye) isn't the same as sodium sulfite. Both can be obtained from chemical supply houses, and aren't on the regulated list of substances, yet. 😀

Lye can be obtained from hardware stores and sodium metabisulfite (related to, if not, sodium bisulfite) can be found in large baking suppliers. It is a clarifying
ingredient for pastries and confectionaries, if I remember it right. In the DIY Rodinal I made, I used sodium metabisulphite instead of sodium sulphite. Metabisulphite is more expensive though.

Jay

 

[tpersin]

There's been a dialogue going on f295 about Acetaminophenodinal since Nov. 14, 2005. You can see it here: http://f295.tompersinger.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-lab/m-1132019056/s-0/

 

[GeneW]

There's a long thread on homebrew Rodinal on APUG as well:

http://www.apug.org/forums/showthread.php?t=21333&highlight=tylenol

Gene

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I'd like to try this at some point as well...but I don't know where I could get lye around here and we have copper pipes. I suppose that diluting it would make it fine and the fact that I have an opaque and very strong chemical storage bottle I could put it in is also a factor, but considering the fact that I have some Rodinal coming in a few days it's probably just a good idea to wait and use that. I love mixing things up, though...chemistry is one of my favorite subjects if you haven't figured that out by now.

 

[sfb_dot_com]

Mushy grain or not I enjoyed the end results, and as ever it's that which counts.

When I finally get round to doing my own B&W dev again, I'll have a go. It'll remind me of my days at university doing experiments in the afternoon after a few beers at lunchtime. Not to be recommended as I once put a mercury thermometer through my finger & still have the scar to this day!

Cats are just sooooooooo photogenic! 😛

Andy

 

[ZorkiKat]

Stephanie

Lye is as common in hardware stores as paint and thinner are. They're used for clearing drains- they are "Drano" in its most basic form 😀

You need not worry about flushing down this developer used. Its highly diluted, and in working solutions, alkalinity is low enough to be safe to pour down the drain.

Rodinal shipped in white polyethylene bottles so light should pose no hazards. This DIY brew may in fact be better stored in clear bottles to see its composition. It tends to settle in layers which needs to be mixed in regularly and before use.
😀

Jay

 

[titrisol]

There is no problem with LYE and copper pipes. Acids are more problematic.
Besides, the amount you are going to use, plus diluting it 1+50 afterwards makes it trivial.

If you consider that Brezeln (Pretzels) are boiled in a 2 - 5% lye solution 😉

I'd like to try this at some point as well...but I don't know where I could get lye around here and we have copper pipes. I suppose that diluting it would make it fine and the fact that I have an opaque and very strong chemical storage bottle I could put it in is also a factor, but considering the fact that I have some Rodinal coming in a few days it's probably just a good idea to wait and use that. I love mixing things up, though...chemistry is one of my favorite subjects if you haven't figured that out by now.

 

[sf]

The miracle drug. They weren't kidding.

 

[titrisol]

wow, great results!
nice shadow detail, grain and the rest I can;t say from the little images.

 

[ZorkiKat]

If anyone in the UK wants to try this, acetaminophen is paracetamol.

thats what we call it here too.

 

[ray_g]

Sounds like an interesting experiment. How much would you say the ingredients would cost, say for 2 35mm rolls? With the cost of paracetamol, would this be considerably cheaper than Rodinal or a similar concentrate like HC110?

Rodinal is about $10 for 500ml - for a 1+50 dilution, developing 2 rolls would be slightly more than 10cents. Even less for the 1+75 dilution you used.

 

[ray_g]

Never mind, I just saw the cost estimates in Gman's post. 😉

 

[leafy]

It's not Lucky. Lucky and this film are as different as cotton and wool. 😉

The local spooler won't give details. The edges aren't even numbered or labelled, though the characters "中国" (China) sometimes (more, rarely) appears.

I like this film for its 'old' texture. Using it with old rangefinders gives that old
classic candid camera look.

It could be GongYuan (Century), which is the only BW film other than Lucky that I can find in Shanghai. GongYuan is a bit cheaper than Lucky per roll (5.5RMB vs 7RMB for ISO400 films).