A few weeks ago I mixed up some Old workhorse collodion and it turned dark orange by the next day.Last week I looked at it again and it is now a much lighter orange. I have'nt used it since then but probably should . I read in an old manual about putting a small piece of zink into old red collodion to restore it, I did that once and it did go back to a normal color but did not work well for positives.

Ive had the same problem myself and it was determined to be the wrong type of ether. I had a similar problem where it turned red but didnt get light with time and it was again the ether but it was just old rather than being the wrong kind. Not wanting to waste the collodion I did use it but it was way too unpredictable. Would work great then shortly after not good at all. Where did you buy the ether and when? Check with Mike Jacobson from Art Craft he is well aware of the problem.

Have never put zinc in the collodion but you dont have old collodion you have a problem with what went into it and its fresh.

While we are talking about old collodion....

{thread highjacking in progress! }

Used some crap collodion here in India last year - the stuff was straw yellow out of the bottle and must've been ancient by the time I bought it (of course there are no refunds or exchanges here, so I tried to use it as it was) and since then I've had nothing but fogging while shooting test plates. I recently returned to Calcutta and got some fresh collodion and the problem still continues. I set the silver bath in the sun for a few days and a serious amount on greyish gunk precipitated out - seemingly a lot for having just shot a few test plates.

So, I am thinking that the old, garbage collodion I had used has contaminated the silver bath something serious. Before that, I didn't have a fogging problem and now it's really bad.

The question I have is this: if the silver is really badly contaminated, can it be saved and how?