Brush vs tank electroplating

[whooptydoo]

I was curious to know if anyone has attempted to electroplate dags by brush plating the silver instead of using the usual tank method. I’d like to manufacture my own plates but haven’t seriously pursued it because of the high volume of toxic chemicals required in tank plating (my roommate’s been pretty good humored about all my photo chemistry, but I could see him putting his foot down if he found a cyanide bath crowding his parking space in the garage). Brush plating is a safer, cyanide-free alternative, I just don’t know if it will yield the kind of results required for daguerreotypy. I’m new to all this, so any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

-Nick Sario

[Andy Stockton]

It’s an interesting question. In my reading I have only seen examples of tank plating. Perhaps no one reading here has tried brush plating. A while back I tried to get some answers on the Caswell’s BBS concerning their non-cyanide silver plating process, but no one answered there.

Keep trying, no matter what I have asked in the daguerreian world, someone eventually comes out of the wordwork and explains to me that he had tried that some years ago and etc, and etc. In a field where there are mostly independent workers discovering and rediscovering processes and methods the answer can take a while.

[photolytic]

Nick, I see you are in Chicago.

Why don’t you just call or visit Coult Greenwell at Reliable plating, 1538 West lake street.

http://www.reliableplating.com/directions.htm

They do the best silver plating job in the midwest and have silver plated my Daguerreotype plates for years.

Look at Rio Grande’s website,

https://www.riogrande.com/home/

They also sell non-cyanide silver plating solutions and other supplies for tank plating.

Brush silver plating is mainly for patching worn spots on existing silver plate where extremely small amounts of silver and direct current are required. For larger areas requiring heavy silver application, a silver anode and a larger rectifier are also needed, since the amount of silver in the plating solution is minimal and needs to be replaced as the silver in the solution is deposited on the copper surface.

[dagist]

Nick,

I agree with John that brush plating should not be considered a viable alternative to tank plating for the purpose of producing a daguerreotype plate. It is not designed as a process for applying an evenly distributed coating of silver across a large flat area, and it will most likely result in an unusable daguerreotype surface which is too thin, mottled or striated in its appearance.

It is a well established fact (ask any professional electroplater) that cyanide plating (as opposed to the cyanide-free alternatives) is the preferred method of electroplating if you want consistent plating results that will adhere properly to the substrate (copper in this case) and provide an evenly plated surface to your required thickness. The silver surface on an electroplated piece of copper is actually grown (think of it as layers that are gradually building up on top of each other) during its time in the plating bath and many factors can affect how the surface looks when it comes out. The porosity of the electroplated silver is also an issue, as well as how evenly it plates at the chosen current level. Brighteners used in the plating bath are also a concern and all these factors contribute to how easy or hard the silver surface is to polish after it’s finished.

As I said in a different post, silver plating is an art unto itself and many factors need to be precisely controlled in order to achieve consistent daguerreotype-quality results.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[Author]

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