Wearing gloves when processing black & white paper

eli griggs

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If your wood tongs often end up in the tray of developer, ect, you can always make them more resistant to chemicals and easier to clean up, by shellacking the removed wood handles with a three pound cut which is waterproof, making several completely cured layers.

The Russians, the Soviet's, now Russians and client's shellacked many millions of the Worlds Greatest Battle Rifles and Carbines pre-WWI, WWII, and most every war up into today, mainly the Mosin-Nagants M91, 91-30, m44, m38, 91-58, SKS, and others plus those made by other waring parties and their suppliers.

If shellac has held up on those greatly abused sticks of wood, you can safely bet it'll work great in the darkroom sinks of this World!

Cheers and, give it a shot, it won't cost much and should be applied to new wood, not old sticks, half worn out.
 

khh

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DREW WILEY said:
Tray chemicals never splash ??? I can't control even kitchen ketchup or salad dressing to that degree.
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They can of course, but you feel any splashes that hit your skin. When I do, I will wash and dry my hands as quickly as possible to limit exposure and carry over risk. Photochemicals should certainly be treated with respect, and I would never let a student into a lab without knowing proper safety procedures and risks, but luckily we aren't working with hydrofluoric acid levels of hazard.
 

DREW WILEY

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Eli - Shellac isn't particularly durable. It is easily stripped by alcohol and other solvents, for example. It is relatively soft, and is affected by heat, including hot water. If tongs were made of bamboo, they'd be reasonably impervious on their own (chopsticks are often bamboo). ... or plastic tongs.

As per wooden sinks, shellac would be a very poor choice. It can be used as a quick drying sealer below certain other kinds of coatings, like marine varnish. But overall, there are much better choices in this day and age to coat either darkroom sinks or gunstocks. The choice of it a century ago for mass manufactured combat gunstocks was probably that shellac can be layered up very quickly compared to the slow drying characteristics of finishing oils. It was on ce also widely used for hardwood flooring. Now true shellac is in comparative short supply.
 

GregY

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As far a tongs go, I've had the same set of Kostiner stainless steel tongs for decades. Looking for an image for this post i saw a set on Ebay for $25...you wouldn't be taking much of a shellacking if you buy them...

Kostiner Stainless Steel Darkroom Print Tongs (3) W/ RACK/HOLDER | eBay

Kostiner Stainless Steel Darkroom Print Tongs (3) W/ RACK/HOLDER. Condition is Used. Shipped with USPS Ground Advantage.
www.ebay.com
 
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Doremus Scudder

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DREW WILEY said:
... If tongs were made of bamboo, they'd be reasonably impervious on their own (chopsticks are often bamboo). ...
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I'm using 35+ year-old bamboo tongs. I replace the rubber tips now and then.

I don't splash around a lot in my trays, and tongs let my hands stay above the drips. The occasional contact gets washed off quickly; I've always got a running water tray going. Racks with clean flour-sack hand towels are at one end of the sink for drying.

Anyway, the object is to minimize contact with most chemicals, not avoid it completely. Standard print developers, stops and fixers won't make significant impact if they just sit on your skin for a few seconds, so just rinse when needed. The thing to avoid is prolonged contact, so take the necessary precautions.

Doremus
 

Sirius Glass

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I am using spring stainless steel arms and plastic paddle tongs.
 

DREW WILEY

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Steve Austin had to quit darkroom work once he realized his finger joints weren't actual 316 stainless, but cheap 18-8, and were starting to corrode in the acetic acid stop bath. Same thing happened when he ate pickles.
 

eli griggs

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Thanks for your information.

Though I've never seen a Russian or Finn M-N, SKS, or other shellacked firearm with water/snow damage or other signs of damage from Shellac deficits, your points raise interesting questions for those of us that use these old tools.

Does anyone know of or have old photo related kit with shellacked surfaces?
 

DREW WILEY

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One of the former advantages of shellac, especially on floors, is that once a portion was damaged by a water or heat spot, they could remove it with alcohol rubbing, and just applying fresh quick drying coats, build them up until the color matched. Modern hybrid acrylic finishes have replaced shellac for that purpose, and are far more water and stain resistant. Another issue is that over time, deep layered shellac exposed to UV can craze n' crack like crazy.

As a dominant binder to painting primers, shellac is unsurpassed for blocking smoke stains and bleeding tannins.
That kind of application is now getting adulterated with less effective acrylic blockers due to the shortage of lac.
Clear shellac is used for sealing wooden picture frame rabbets to prevent wood acid migration into the matboard.
I always have some kind of it on hand. But the largest usage for shellac is as a thickener to the chewy centers of See's Candy!

For gunstocks, the old slow way had its appeal - rubbing on linseed oil. The friction of rubbing actual polymerized the oil into a longer alkyd chain which was far more durable than the original state of the oil. There was also a particular beauty to that. But it was too slow a process for mass production work. I did have one rifle with a shellac finish on a mountain mahogany stock - that was one heavy gun! (mtn mahogany sinks in water).
 
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eli griggs

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Do you know of any old school cameras, film holders or photographers tripods treated with shellac?

One thing about the Russian and Finn stocks that made for a beautiful wood, was the birch tar oil finishes, beneath shellac or not.

I think if I had a Large Format Field Camera with bold figure, to return to active service, both the Birchbark oil/tar hand rubbed finish and the shellac treatments for the wood camera would make for a camera with a good distinction.
 

DREW WILEY

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Lots of old cameras and even their brass hardware were coated with shellac, but oil n' wax finishes were also used. The problem with the latter is that the rags are highly capable of spontaneous combustion. Even the sale of them is restricted in the US, though some of it sneaks through. I've literally seen a number of cabinet shops and furniture plants catastrophically burn down due to carelessness in that regard. I won't go into the more stable substitutes here, since this is already a drift to the original thread, except to say that the touch-up finish for my own mahogany view camera is a remarkably high-tech product which yields the same classic look.
 

Sirius Glass

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Don_ih said:
I knew your name was Steve - I didn't know it was Steve Austin:
View attachment 376769
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For $6 million back when the show came out all that could be made would have been an arm the would send out a shower of sparks when it moved and then it would have burst into flames leaving a smoking pile of burn metal, electrical components, circuit boards and other debris.
 
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