List of Chemicals Needed

I had a few people asking me what to order exactly and how much of it so I decided to make a list I could revert to and others as well. The list of chemicals I’m about to write down did cost me about € 430,- so your wallet has an idea of what to expect 😉

Not included is the price of the distilled water of which you’ll need a lot. I think I have shot a total of around 20 plates, not all saved, and I still have plenty of chemicals left. Can’t really tell you how long my stash will last though. In the meanwhile I did buy an extra canister of Ethanol 5 Liter, more water as in 15 canisters of each 5 Liter and more fix, as with the hypo fixer you use up quite a bit.

The first part I mention I ordered from Antonides in the Netherlands:

*     Sodium Thiosulfate Pentahydrate, ch.z. (Fixer)
2,5 KG
I-A7.110.15D

*    Ethanol 96%, denatured with 5% methanol (Lots of purposes)
5 Liter
I-A5.201.51D

*    Diethylether, pract. (Collodion)
1 Liter
I-H5.102.16A

*    Cadmium Bromide Tetrahydrate (Salt for Collodion)
50 Gram
I-C3.367.18-50G

*    Ammonium Iodide Erg. B6 (Salt for Collodion)
100 Gram
I-YY.111.2A

*    Iron II Sulfate, dried, pract. (For Developer)
250 Gram
I-C5.103.79A

*    Glacial Acetic Acid 99-100%, ch.z.  (For Developer)
1 Liter
I-H8.100.78A

*    Calcium Carbonate, precipitated, light (Plate Cleaner)
1 KG
I-A7.201.46

The Silver Nitrate I bought of Ebay Germany. It saved me half the money compared to a shop in the Netherlands. I bought 200 grams at once for approx. €100,- You cannot buy this from the States if you’re from Europe as that chem is not allowed to be shipped overseas.

The plain USP Collodion I bought from Assink Chemie in the Netherlands. 1 Liter did cost me about € 100,-. When it arrived I immediately mixed it up with the liter of Ether to stabilize the latter. One bottle of a liter with the Ethanol-Ether mix I keep in the garage. The other liter I have stored in the fridge in my darkroom and added the salts to create the iodizer. That I can mix anytime I like with the plain Collodion and have a perfect immediate working solution at hand.

Distilled water you need to buy in massive large quantities as you will be using this A LOT. It’s being used to mix the chemicals, clean the beakers and stirring rods etc. I started out with 5 canisters each holding 5 liter and soon bought another 15 of them. I bought them at the Sligro where I paid around € 2,60 per canister. The empty canisters are handy to save the chemical waste in and later on dump them on the chemical disposal site, all labeled of course.

In a nutshell I think this is about all you need apart from the beakers, storage bottles, stirring rods etc. you will need as well. I hope this list will be of great help to the ones just starting out. It seems a lot at first but when you get your head around it it’s not really a big deal anymore.