My 50old/50new developer won't flow evenly across the plate. Tired of all the unsightly islands and such. Tried mixing new silver bath and making sure my collodion was tacked up well before I put the plate in the bath. No improvement. I tried using 100% new developer. No better there. tried adding alcohol to the developer until it stopped working altogether, but it never flowed any better. Finaly, I got a bad case of the #$*&!!-its, and I stuck a plate of barely firm collodion in my silver bath without letting it tack up, and then i grabbed my bottle of old, nasty (but filtered) developer and used that... it worked perfectly, flowed like silk right across the plate in one even sweep,and the pic came out fine (see attach).

So what gives? How come it works when I break the rules? Does anyone know chemically, what causes the repelling between the silvered collodion on the plate and the developer? Is it pH? Is it a lack of affinity between the clean new developer and the silver nitrate? I don't mind using the old stuff, but I think I'm missing something here...all suggestions welcome!