In the past, I first shot with a quick clear collodion ready mixed from John Brewer which is an excellent starter recipe which gives great results, then last year when at Coffers Jamboree, I shot with his Old Workhorse and produced some of my best plates ever. This year at the European weekend I shot with a different Old Workhorse and Lea Landscape no.7 recipe (which is real good) supplied by Mamut Photo in the Czech Republic.
So I guess its about time I started mixing my own, so lets start easy with the Poe Boy recipe. This doesnt use any extra ether and only two salts, Potassium Iodide and Potassium Bromide.
I’d done John a small favour so he supplied me with some plain collodion, I already had the salts and IDA etc.
Heres the recipe I used from Coffers website as a pdf from his Mythbusters section. Click here
“Poe Boy Collodion”
240 ml plain Collodion
300 ml Denatured Alcohol
6 ml Distilled Water
3 grams Potassium Bromide
5 grams Potassium Iodide
Just Collodion and IDA.
Dropped the salts in…
A quick swish around and leave to settle…
The first salt dissolved easy enough, the second took quite a bit longer and needed a little heat applied.
On leaving the studio at lunchtime the mixture had turned a nice yellowy colour, I hope thats okay? You can speed up the maturity by adding a couple of drops of Tincture of Iodine. I didn’t have any so will just leave it to brew and settle. I’ll then decant the finished product hopefully on Monday.
How did this mix work out, how did it compare to the three discussed in your post?
Hi Paul,
Wasn’t impress with my batch of Poe Boy, must have been something I did when mixing it as others whop use the same ingredients/recipe have had success with it.
Of the others Quickclear I find a little dull, Old Workhorse is good but I prefer Lea Landscape 7.
Poe Boy can work as good as most any collodion formula. Its benefit is its lack if exotic ingredients that can be hard to get. It doesn’t look like my friend mixed it according to my instructions in my “Doers Guide to wet plate manual. Adding the drops of Tincture of Iodine is essential for one thing. John Coffer, Camp Tintype
Blimey is that really you John? Thank for the comment, this was ten years ago and sadly a lack of iodine tincture with a hint of naivety.
I hope all is well at Camp Tintype.