Topic: What to do with my Kodachrome...

[Chris A Fraser]

I just won a box of film off the evil auction site, and in the mix bag o film was a few rolls of Kodachrome 126 film... Since I let my son play around one of those old Kodak Instamatic 126 cameras, I thought I might load it up with some film.

I see that it can be developed as a B&W film. Has anyone tried it? Is it worth the effort? What developer?

[scholzj1]

I know that you can send it to Blue Moon Camera here in Portland OR and they will develop it as a B&W photo. You might call them up and ask if it is possible to develop it yourself.  They are usually very helpful. http://www.bluemooncamera.com/

[LT]

just found this on P.nut  - not sure how reliable it is, but worth a try?

Kodachrome color film is made using three separate black & white emulsions sandwiched onto a single support. Each layer responds to specific frequencies of the spectrum (red - green -blue). During the developing process, a black & white negative image is formed by developing the film in an energetic black & white developer. The developer used is a rather ordinary in that it combines two developing agents. This combination is known in the trade as superadditive. The two agents are metol combined with hydroquinone. In an earlier time, hydroquinone was called quinol, thus the nicknname MQ. Kodak D-76 is an excellent example and it will work well for this purpose.

In the actual color developing process, after the black & white negative image appears, Kodachrome film is treated using two reversal exposures and one chemical reversal, each followed by a dye bath. The film is then bleached and fixedto remove unexposed silver and silver images. Dyes are induced during the process. This type of film type is called in the trade, non-incorporated. Whereas Ektachrome E-6 and Kodacolor C-41 have a simpler process because these films have dyes incorporated in then during manufacture.

Now Kodachrome wears an undercoating consisting of a heavy layer of carbon black. This layer protects the film from exposure when loaded into a motion picture camera, while on a reel. It protects against exposure from the rear in reflex movie camera and prevents halation's. Now this anti-halation coat is an acid plastic that is soluble in an alkaline bath. The backing called rem-jet and its difficult to remove. In the Kodachrome process the film is pre-soaked in an alkaline bath. This temporally hardens the film allowing it to withstand the rigorous of machine processing and also softens the rem-jet which is removed by buffing with soft spinning cloth rollers.

You can processes Kodachome as a black & white using most any common developer. After processing the rem-jet backing can be removed by buffing the back of the film with a soft well washed T-shirt. Removal can be difficult thus the following solution softens.
To make 1 liter
Water 800ml (warm)
Borax 20g
Sodium Sulfate 100g
Sodium Hydroxide 1g

[Nigel]

There's an interesting post on the FPP blog where one lab had some success developing as B+W.

http://michaelraso.blogspot.com/2011/01/kodachrome-in-2011-process-as-black-and.html

Might be worth a try.