PFG-03M experiences

These are all of the old posts from the first two years of the forum. They are locked.
Updated: 2005-03-28 by HoloM (the god)
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Tom B..

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Tom B.. »

I would like to partly retract my earlier post on Frank's forum about use of acetic acid/ alum hardening bath. The theory is good, it's just that most of the defects I was seeing were in the plates themselves. The plates arrived from Integraf) in rough shape - 1 plate broken and a few with chipped corners. Perhaps UPS (Integraf's only shipping choice) lived up to its reputation for repeated 12 foot drops onto concrete floors. Anyway, about half the plates had obvious scratches - from glass chips? and many seemed to have some sort of odd "orange-peel" quality to the emulsion thickness. None were perfect. So much for the vaunted Russian quality control Actually my PFG-01 plate and film experiences were much better, so maybe this was an isolated incident.

Sensitivity with JD3 processing and 660 nm light was about half that of PFG-01 or Ultimate. I don't like these plates. I think I'll try Yves Gentet's new stuff next time.
Colin Kaminski

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Colin Kaminski »

Chemicals

Developer Part A (1 liter) Quantity

Metol or Elon (p-Methylaminophenol sulfate) 4 g
Ascorbic acid (powder) 25 g

Developer Part B (1 liter)

Sodium carbonate, anhydrous 70 g
Sodium hydroxide 15 g

Bleach (1 liter)

Copper sulfate (pentahydrate) 35g
Potassium bromide 100g
Sodium hydrogen sulfate crystals 5g

Mixing instructions

Use three l liter (or larger)size clean glass or plastic bottles with leak proof caps. Label them A, B, and Bleach respectively.

Warm the distilled or de-ionized water to about 40o C (warm to the touch).

Fill the bottle marked A with 700 ml of warm water. Dissolve the Metol in it, then add the ascorbic acid. Add 300 ml of warm water to make 1 liter of Part A developer. Tightly cap the bottle. Part A will oxidized if it is exposed to oxygen. In time (over a few days to few weeks), the solution may turn yellow due to the oxidation of ascorbic acid; the solution is still useable. Once the solution turns dark brown, the potency is lost and should be disposed.

One way of protecting it from oxidation is to subdivide the solution into smaller bottles so that the unused portions are in fully capped bottles, with little or no air space on top. Refrigeration also slows down oxidation (exercise extreme caution to prevent its mistaken identity as food).

Follow the same procedure for Part B (add the sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide in either order). This solution will keep for many weeks.

Follow the same procedure for mixing the Bleach. This solution has very long shelf life.

Ronny Andreassen

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Ronny Andreassen »

Thanks for this JD-4 Recipie. I'll try it out on my Russian plates.
Tom B.

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Tom B. »

A correction to the original post, which was made
after a very frustrating day in the basement lab
I was using JD4 with PFG-03M, not JD3. It may be that
if I was working with undamaged plates and spent more
time figuring out what was going wrong in processing
and drying I could get good results - but it does
seem to be very difficult to get clean results
with this emulsion, much more so than any other
I have tried. I wound up using the plates to make
masters which were then used for image plane transfer
to (Ultimate) film. This effectively hid the defects.

Re trying JD4 out on Russian plates - apparently JD4
works well only with very fine-grained emulsions.
I've seen reports of awful results with PFG-01 -
it may be that the rehalogenating bleach step
amplifies grain noise unacceptably in coarser
grained emulsions. But you never know for sure until
you try.
Bernadette Olson

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Bernadette Olson »

I am wondering what the expiration date was on those plates. The PFG-03M plates have a fairly short lifetime especially if they are not stored optimally. Quality control is still a sore point with Slavich but it has improved considerably over the years and Slavich is still working hard at it.
Thank you for the useful feedback on these plates.

Bernadette
Tom B.

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Tom B. »

They were fairly fresh - manufacturing date was December 2001 - and were stored at 2-4 degrees C while I had them. No doubt in addition to repeated drops onto concrete floors, UPS also provides special oven processing for perishable goods

Have you had (or seen anyone getting) clean results with PFG-03M? I'm thinking of giving it another try - maybe trying the Slavich formalin hardening bath treatment pre-JD4 development rather than the post-bleach alum/acetic bath that I tried with inconclusive results. Hmmm ... I still have a few small plates left ...
Ronny Andreassen

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Ronny Andreassen »

Clear results, yes. Please take a look at Vidar Hegdal's page (U'll find it on Frank's linkpage)Here I present One of my first holograms made on these plates.
I used the "Slavich formalin hardening bath treatment " as U mentioned. If you follow the reccomended process on the Slavich site for these plates you'll have success every time. I'v made a lot of clear singlebeams on PFG-03M plates with my HeNe's and diodes. I'v allso made reflection masters with greate results. Good luck to yoy
Tom B.

PFG-03M experiences

Post by Tom B. »

Found it: http://www.techsoft.no/holography/ronny_anderassen.htm

Very nice! In your process description, you refer to hardening BEFORE exposure. I would have never thought to try this - the Slavich recipe seems to describe it as a post-exposure step. But I can see why it makes sense if you are also pre-swelling with TEA - you don't want the emulsion oozing around while soaking in TEA and drying.
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