A sold a 4×5!

[phuphuphnik]

I have sold a half dozen or so of the soldered silver 2×2 images, but I was at a 1840s days event at a local living history place as a Daguerreotypist and made a few. Trying the recently plated 4×5 I was taking random farm life impressions. I overheated my plates in the sun and _nothing_ was working right. I made one that looked OK, gilded it and it was worthless. (this is why I don’t often gild) I had another that was pretty poor but this guy loved it. I didn’t even have a frame for it. He asked what I wanted for it, I told him that if it were a good image I’d ask $X. He pulled out a wad of cash. The image being lousy I told him to take it home, think about it and if he still had to have it paypal me the cash. Next day I was able to afford the brakes for my wife’s car.

Not a bad day after all.

cheers,

chriso

[RonF]

Hi Chriso-

Congratulations on the sale! It’s doubly nice when someone appreciates your image and you also make some money.

I am making dags. I use old plates that I bought with the images already rubbed off. I am still in the learning stage, not ready to try to sell them yet.

I was wondering if you could explain to me what a soldered silver image is. Is this a process where you plate a copper plate by using silver solder? Would you be willing to explain the process?

Thanks,

Ron

[Andy Stockton]

Hey Chriso – I was looking at your Dags on photobucket and wondered about the plates too. Are you putting .999 thin silver on brass and soldering it? Do you do that with a torch or in a kiln of some kind? Just curious – if it’s a personal trade secret, never mind.

[phuphuphnik]

Yep! These are terrific for practice. You can polish these hundreds of times. I take a brass plate, about 2.5″ square. skuff it up with scotchbrite. put it onto a aluminum plate on the stove. keep tapping solder on the plate until it melts. wait a second so it wets the brass. put the silver onto the brass and carefully let solder wick under the silver. If it gets on top, it won’t sensitize on that spot. Then turn off the stove and carefullt so as not to move the silver press a bit of wood over the whole thing. this flattens it out. if you used too much solder it will ooze out and wreck the edges of the silver image wise. Let it cool, and polish.

[drdag]

I word of warning from a silversmith, if you get the silver too hot and you are using lead solder, it will burn a hole straight though it. Walk into a silvermiths forge/soldering area with a stick of lead and see what they do to you!

That means dont use a bare flame.

[Andy Stockton]

Drdag – if you were trying to do what Chriso has been doing, solder a thin silver plate to a thicker brass or copper substrate, what technique(s) would you use? It seems like an interesting approach to getting a sturdy, multi-use plate that still might be somewhat less expensive than the pure silver plates you have used to good effect in your work.

[Author]

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