My 15 kilos of Indian wet plate chemicals will arrive on Tuesday. I paid a $117 CAD customs fee today, the overall total cost is a bit less than $1800 CAD for the 3 chemicals, Potassium Bromide, Cadmium Bromide and Ammonium Iodide. I should save thousands of dollars on this deal, thou I am not sure how long I can store the chemicals for use. I was told by a PHD friend at work I could store Ammonium Iodide for at least 5 years, and he explained to me the best way to do that (smaller bottles, dry, cool, dark place at lower temperatures).
I will see how it goes, but am very happy with the deal right now. As a side benefit, I now have the proper CSN (?)number (still not sure what that is) to allow more shipments thought Canadian customs in the future. I am thinking of possibly ordering more of the same chemicals, or a variety of other types, like Sodium Thiosulfate, Cadmium Iodide, Potassium Iodide and Silver Nitrate. I am going to need a ton of Silver Nitrate for AMBROTOS KANATA any savings there would help a lot. There is also a company in China willing to sell me Silver Nitrate. I need to compare and get the cheapest price.
So now with this chemical deal from India and with the use of Canadian Bio Ethanol as the main alcohol I have cut costs per plate substantially. I also have a slightly cheaper Canadian source for Ether if I use a collodion with added ether, like Quinn's Quick Clear. I am currently leaning to using a mostly alcohol collodion. The cost of making my huge ULF 35x35 inch plates continues to fall.
My only remaining worry is the quality of the chemicals. The company in India is a large one with a 52 year history, so hopefully they make good chemicals :)
Note* I know I can store Ammonium Iodide for 5 years, am hoping to store and use the chemicals over a 10 year period, but not sure that is possible. I will follow the storage instructions given to me by a person in charge of the laboratory at the company where I work security. Even if the chemicals do not last 10 years, even if they only last 5, I should still save a ton of money by going this way.
Update* I am not sure how much collodion I will need for the project. How much collidion is needed to cover a 35x35 inch plate? How many hundreds, maybe thousands of plates (10 plus year project) will I be making that big? Plus all the smaller plate work.
When I get my chemicals delivered this coming Tuesday, I should have enough supplies to make (and these are rather ridiculous numbers). This seems like a lot:
Cadmium Bromide 833.33 x 1000 ml bottles of collodion, so over 833000 ml.
Ammonium Iodide 625 x 1000 ml bottles of collodion, so over 625000 ml.
Potassium Bromide 416.66 x 960 ml bottles of collodion, so over 416000 ml.
