Does anyone know if the PMK Pyro developer is available in Australia? What about availability of raw photographic chemicals in Queensland? Any help would be much appreciated.

-- Tim Bolotnikoff (tbolotni@legalaid.qld.gov.au), March 31, 1999

Answers

Don't know of any chemical suppliers in Australia but if you don't find any give Artcraft Chemicals a call in Schenectady N.Y. USA. (www.nfinity.com/~mdmuir/artcraft/html) Pretty sure he will do international shipments if laws permit. Has very good prices as well.

-- Brian Jefferis (jefferis@erols.com), April 02, 1999.

PMK is easy to make from normally stocked dry chemistry. Any chemical supply house will have the sodium sulfite, sodium bisulfite, and the Kodalk (sodium metaborate.) Nearly all will have metol, but you may have a little trouble finding pyrogallol because the demand is low. Photographers' Fromulary in the USA (Montana) can ship it. (http://www.montana.com/formulary/)I would get only the chemicals that are unavailable where you are and avoid shipping costs. Get the Book of Pyro by Gordon Hutchings. PF packages it with a kit of PMK at a reduced price. Good luck.

-- Michael D Fraser (mdfraser@earthlink.net), April 08, 1999.

Tim,

I've been able to purchase the chemicals required to mix PMK from a company called Vanbar. They have two outlets in Victoria and one in NSW. They have an affiliate or sub company called Photochem which will sell the chemicals you require. Their email address is Vanbar@vanbar.com.au. They have a website which is www.vanbar.com.au.

They will ship chemicals interstate and overseas.

You should know however, that Pyrogallol is expensive, about $90-100aud for 100gms which makes PMK an expensive developer. I haven't actually used it yet as I've been playing around with ABC Pyro, which Photochem sell in dry kit form of varying sizes.

Anyway, hope this helps and good luck.

Michael

-- Michael Chappell (mickyc@slhosiery.com.au), April 12, 1999.

Hi Tim I managed to get pyrogallol from a company called Chem-Supply Pty Ltd in Perth for $190 tax exempt per Kilo ($231.80 wt). Apparently they have a parent firm in SA. The chemicals I had trouble with are sodium metaborate (had to substitute to prevent exorbitant costs) and EDTA disodium - couldnt get that at all. I've been feeling deprived and blamed the isolation of Perth, but maybe I shouldn't feel so bad.

Regards Larry

-- Larry Hamilton (forbes@iinet.net.au), May 07, 1999.

Max Muir has a good web page about finding chemicals at the grocery store.
Shopping for Chemicals
You wont be able to find pyrogallol at the stor but many of the other chemicals are there.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), May 07, 1999.

The link a mentioned above is http://www.nfinity.com/~mdmuir/shopping.html . I never have any luck imbedding html here.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), May 07, 1999.