Expiry date on Chemicals?

jonesy22 · Nov 8, 2009

I've got some photochem econoprint (from jessops, also fix and stopbath) that I haven't used in a few years, and before I use it I want to know if it's safe. I looked for an exppiry date and there isn't one. I looked around on the web a little to see if I could find out if these chemicals expire or if it's usually a long period before they would expire and found nothing.

If I remember rightly I got the chemicals in around 2004.

If it turns out the chemicals probably have expired, what experience do people have with expired chemicals, like film is it a case of it's probably ok but sometimes it turns out dodgy?
Thanks

jonesy

ann · Nov 9, 2009

are these in cans or packets?
i am assuming the stopbath is a liquid, and it may be fine

jonesy22 · Nov 9, 2009

Sorry ye they're all in liquid form.

J.Kendall · Nov 9, 2009

In my experience, chemicals that said they were past their expiration date worked fine, but you have to refresh them more often.

Rifleman1776 · Nov 9, 2009

While in Air Force in the 1960s, I was assigned a darkroom stocked with left over WWII equipment and supplies. The film, paper, developers, etc. all worked fine even though they were decades old.

J.Kendall · Nov 9, 2009

Thats so cool...I wish i could get a bunch of stuff like that.

Rifleman1776 · Nov 9, 2009

J.Kendall said:
Thats so cool...I wish i could get a bunch of stuff like that.

Looking back, I guess it was cool. At the time, I was just happy to have a darkroom and free supplies.

J.Kendall · Nov 10, 2009

Thats basically what I was saying...I wish I could have that happen to me.

jonesy22 · Nov 10, 2009

Thanks for the replies, going to test them out today

jonesy22 · Nov 12, 2009

They worked!

Another question though:

At college we were always told not to re-use the developer, to throw it away but pour back the stop and fixer.
With the chemicals I have, I don't think I did that... Because it's liquid, once I had diluted it and made up the solution I continued to reuse it.
But I only remember doing this for printing. I'm wondering if it's safe to reuse the dev for my films?
It gives no instruction of any kind on the bottle.
Thanks

ann · Nov 12, 2009

safe ? it will depend on the type of developer. Some can be reused with an adjustment in time, others are a one shot type. What is the name of the film developer.

for paper, you can save and re-used if your going to do so in the next day, but that will also depend on how many prints have been made and the total volume of developer. FIxer can be saved, and used again, however, again how long will depend on the ratio and the number of prints (including size) that have been fixed. You should be able to check the bottle of the fixer or the spec on line to determine how many sq. inches of paper can be processed, or get some hypo check and use that to determine how much silver is now in the fixer.