I had tried this experiment previously with Pyrocat HD and wanted to see its effect with Pyrocat M. I had seen a post about an olive toner using cachetol in a bleach + redevelop process. The toner is known as IT8. I decided to use dilute Pyrocat M in place of the cachetol toner to see what would happen.

Initial Print
The initial prints where processed as usual and allowed to dry. They were properly exposed on Ilford MGFB Classic Glossy and developed in Ansco 130, +stop bath+Ilford rapid fixer, washed for an hour,  and let it dry for a few days. I cut two images in half , one with low contrast and another with high contrast. I let them all soak until saturated. One half will remain un-toned for comparison to the the toned half.

Bleaching Step

The bleach I used was an aged Bromoil bleach which contains Potasium Dicromate, Copper Sulfate, and Potassium Bromide. This is a hardening bleach and is usually fixed after bleaching for the bromoil inking process. The image bleached fully as usual except for the deepest tones and they lightened to a medium brown. The bleached halves were then washed for about 5 minutes.

Redevelop Step
I prepared the developer using Pyrocat M 10A:10B: 1000Water at 75*. Pyrocat M has a small amount of Metol(2.5g/liter) but is mostly Catchetol (50g/Liter).
I put the bleached and washed halves into the developer. After a couple of minutes the dark tones came back but the middle tones and highlights were a muddy gray bleached blah tone.
I left it the developer for a full 15 minutes before the highlights came back. I probably had too dilute a developer but I was only working with 2 halves of an 8×10.

Result
The bleached/redeveloped halves shifted to a nice aged warm rich tone yet not really chocolate brown like you get with thiourea toner, with light tan staining in white areas. There seems to be a perceivable improvement in sharpness in mid tones and dark tones. This may be due to some of the staining of the paper and possibly due to higher tones not returning to their full brightness.  In future tests I may reduce the amount of part B in relation to part A since that is what controls the staining effect.

UPDATE – I repeated the experiment using using a bleach made from Potassium Ferricyanide and Potassium Bromide (my Thiourea bleach) until all but darkest tones were gone. Redeveloped in Pyrocat M 5:5:500 . The whites are a little cleaner and the warming effect is still present. In a darker toned image the effect is more pronounced than a lighter toned one. In the image above the scanner brings out more of the differences that is apparent in normal light.