Low-cost Experimental Daguerreotypy Failure

[jgmotamedi]

Great work, who would have thought you can get an image from tincture of iodine?

Anyhow, I think the first thing to do is see if your problem is the fixer. Most of us use sodium thiosulfate and perhaps sodium sulfate. According to the MSDS, Kodak fixer has a lot more in it than just the thiosulfate, including alum and sodium acetate. Sodium thiosulfate is usually pretty cheap.

Did you read the piece on the CDags site about using silvered glass? It is a different approach to what you tried with silver leaf, but might be another method to consider.

[photolytic]

Daguerre himself originally used sodium chloride fixer before thiosulfate came along.

Ammonium thiosulfate or rapid fixer is also a very good alternative.

The other components in Kodak fixer are there to harden the silver gelatin image and are not helpful for Dags.

 

 

[ronin149]

I ordered some sodium thiosulfate.  It took a while to come.  Until the hypo came I only had two images left, the first two I made.  All others faded away or turned black.

I have given up on the long duration sensitization.  It had it’s charms, but there seems to be something unstable about a sensitization layer created over such a long time.  All of those images vanished in the fixer.  By reducing the distance between the plate and the pool of tincture of iodine to just a few millimeters, sensitization times are reduced to the range of five to eight minutes.  All of these turned black over time.

I created a couple of tests today and fixed them with the hypo I just received.  So far they seem stable.  I appear to be back in business.

I have thought about using silvered glass.  I was going to use a common technique for silvering homemade telescope mirrors.  This technique uses Tollens’ Reagent.  I have not gotten around to it yet.

I considered saturated sodium chloride solution.  But from what I understand it has to be heated.  The silver leaf is currently held on my plates with paraffin.  This limits the temperature range of any solutions I use.

I will report back after some more experiments.  Thanks for your help!

[Author]

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