The big boil down…

Yesterday I boiled down my silver bath in a saucepan on our kitchen stove. Didnt stink as bad as I thought it would.

Normally I’d just sun and filter my silver bath, and on the odd occasion I would put it on a darkroom heated plate for a few hours. What possessed my to boil it down I have no idea. The result was a pale yellow cinder toffee looking gloop. I was expecting pretty white silver nitrate crystals. Wish I had taken a picture now. I let it cool down and dissolved in distilled water. This ended in a milky yellow mixture.

A couple of hours sunning in the studio and it turned from yellow to dirty grey. And after 5 filtering sessions it was almost clear.

I shot this quick plate to see if it still worked or if I had had a very expensive experiment…

OutWindowTest2

Its a quarter plate through the window to the abandoned yard next door to the mill. I love what the old glass pane has done to parts of the image.

OutWindowTest1

I’ll filter again tomorrow after its settled overnight and re-test the SG.

Looks like its going to be fine…. Phew!