heat treatment discovered

[daniel]

This Video is for all my friends practicing the mysterious art of the Daguerreotype. Through some experimentation I have found a that treating the surface of a gilded daguerreotype with heat will make the image slightly brighter and more easily viewable. This is an experimental operation and has not been tested and or proven with any other findings other than my own so do this at your own risk.
What I know:
– It only works with gilded daguerreotypes
– It will brighten very weak images and will only slightly improve already bold images.
-I have done the treatment to an antique daguerreotype and it essentially removed much of the tarnish and made the entire image more chalky in the highlights
– It helps kills the blue tint with gilded B-types (Becquerel) and brightens the image more drastically than with mercurial Daguerreotypes.
– I have done this to electroplate and clad daguerreotypes. I use only silver electroplates fro Zappfe in Seattle

I have submitted this video to Mike Robinson, Alan Bekhuis​, Irving Pobboravsky​, Mark Osterman​, and George Eastman House International Museum of Photography & Film​. I asked that they keep it a secret until there was some research or explanation so now I throw it out to public. The feedback has been limited and there has been no response or interest from the Eastman House which has the technology to find out what is going on.

The procedure is simple. Take a gilded daguerreotype and put on your gilding stand. Heat the bottom and then the top. Much care must be given so as to not get the plate too hot especially on the top. Once the plate has been warmed up lick the image with the flame from a IMAP gas torch with a sweeping lateral motion until evenly over the surface. Once you see a change in the density you know the plate is hot enough and then move in so the flame actually touches the plate. DO NOT GET THE PLATE TOO HOT OR MOVE TOO SLOW. THE PLATE WILL BLISTER Start with the side closest to you and and repeat the lateral sweeping motion moving evenly and quickly across the face of the plate. You will see a change in density and color. Make sure to use proper ventilation.

Please try but only on plates that you are not attached to!

Let me know how it goes and message me for questions.
Thanks,
Dan

WATCH THE VIDEO
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9o5072612zwaoqs/2014-05-02%2004.58.03.mp4?dl=0

[bailun]

Better Call Saul

Saul Goodman – Hurlock, John

John – the best lawyer of a devil. / chemistry daguerreotype /

[Mike Robinson]

Hi Dan,

It is interesting that it works only with gilded daguerreotypes. When you do it on an ungilded plate, I hope with good, ventilation, my guess is that the image would darken due to vaporizing mercury from the image particle amalgam. Is this what you have experienced?

Here is my guess as to what is happening.

Image particles are a silver-mercury amalgam. Gilded image particles are effectively encapsulated in a silver-gold coating. This has been determined by recent FIB/TEM cross sections of daguerreotype plates done by my colleague Dr. Ed Vicenzi at the Smithsonian. Imagine a chocolate covered cherry sitting on a chocolate bar. The chocolate is the silver gold coating, the cherry is the silver-mercury amalgam particle. The chocolate bar is the gilded plate surface. My guess is the heat causes the mercury amalgam to expand and fracture the gilded coating, thereby roughening the surface, (more scattering = brighter whites)
Irv and I discussed your video some time ago, and I think he used the term “popcorn” effect. (Irv, forgive me if I misremember).
I imagine the reason the GEH has not responded is due to the time and expense of access to Scanning Electron microscopes etc, which can be hundreds of dollars per hour. If the question does not fit with the research agenda of the institution, you can see why they may not have responded.

Have you looked at your samples with a high powered light microscope?

best

Mike

[photolytic]

An interesting explanation Mike.
Volker Rose showed me the micrographs he’d made with Vicenzi using Argonne Labs advanced photon beam X-rays.
The mercury inside the particles was clearly visible in old 19th Century Dags too.
You’d think that the heat generated by the x-rays impinging on the Dag particles would have also caused them to explode like popcorn too.
Daniel Carrillo says that B-Dags also brighten upon heating.
Since they have no mercury inside them what do you think is happening here?
Perhaps mercury is not the only explanation for the popcorn effect.

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[Mike Robinson]

Hi John,

How much heat do the x-rays generate on the sample?
Years ago Irv and I compared the heat of an alcohol flame to the propane torch.
alcohol flame was 800°C – torch was 1,800°C as I recall.

I just tried to reproduce the Carrillo effect on a couple of my clad plates….failed. In both cases the plate fogged before I noticed any brightening. I chose a plate with not too bright whites. Attached is the lest fogged experiment. The other was severely fogged.

Highly technique dependent.

I would like to see the before and after effect on a B-dag, scans are fine, don’t need to see a movie. Has anyone done this and documented the result.

Mike

best

Mike

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[Andy Stockton]

Dan’s original past says “lick the image with the flame from a IMAP gas torch”. Is that a reference to a MAPP gas torch? The video doesn’t show the torch fully. If it is the original MAPP gas (now unavailable) it not only burns much hotter than propane, it also contains acetylene which reacts with mercury, silver and copper if I remember correctly. If it is the newer MAPP/PRO substitute, it does burn a bit hotter than propane but contains no acetylene. Not sure if any of that is a factor in reproducing the effect of course but I was wondering about it.

Dan – what kind of torch did you use?

[daniel]

Hello Guys,

I used the home depot MAPP/pro gas torch. Its the yellow bottle. The Becquerel plates react even more dramatically but there is no mercury involved. The Gilding or gold must be the key and making the brightening possible. I attached images of a crappy b-type plate. T The first image is of the heat treated plate.

Mike- I use the 16 gauge copper for my plates and take a little longer to heat. The clad plate that I treated was very sensitive to the heating and reacted quickly and requires less time and more care. I successfully treated a clad plate but only with a slight increase in brightness.

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