Mercury pot

[CasedImage]

In terms of format, what are peoples wishes for a mercury pot set up? I am thinking about producing mercury pots for sale and how big, how much, are questions on my mind. I am thinking of keeping it simple – heating by alcohol lamp, double darkslide access, much the same as mine.

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[Jon Lewis]

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and for my first pot I am wanting it to be quarter plate with a reducer for 2 1/4 square (2 3/8 actually) since those are my two formats at this point. I’m not sure how hard it is to make reducers and if they’re beyond the scope of what you’d want to produce I could be content with just quarter plate. Originally I was thinking of going full plate with a myriad of reducers but reality kicked in and I remembered my great 8×10 camera doesn’t actually exist. ” title=”Sad” />

I’m not thrilled with the idea of an alcohol lamp but I do realize it’s cheaper than a temperature controller and it’s probably good to learn. In the end it wouldn’t be all that hard to convert to electric. Other than that, simple is good and a double darkslide is essential. As for cost, I have no idea. Being poor, my natural inclination is the cheaper the better but I’m certainly willing to pay a fair price…

I hope this helps and if you decide it’s worth it for you I’ll be first in line!

[CasedImage]

Reducers aren’t so much of a problem, can be made of sheet acrylic, the main concern i would think would be something that doesn’t absorb the mercury and pass it on to you when your handling the equipment eg wood.

Generally speaking the larger the format the more the hassle and I would think that goes doubly so for a mercury pot. Large format daguerreotypists feel free to drop some pearls of wisdom here.

A large mercury pot (say 8×10) with a darkslide drawn out will take up quite a bit of room in a fume hood so thats something to bear in mind. With my mercury pot it uses a modified vintage (C20th) darkslide, maybe that is the way to go – offer 4×5 or 5×7 mercury pots.

With the heating, since the pot can be raised or lowered, it could be set down on a small electric hot plate, like in one of the images on the Mercury pot page in the galleries. The inverted pyramid makes for a simple design for the fabrication, having a larger "foot" to the pot itself for a thermocouple, complicates matters a bit.

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[botticelli1972]

I have not tried this as I am a Becquerel guy, but I have heard of others using the heater from an old coffee pot for their mercury setups. They are cheap, readily available and thermostatically controlled to just about the right temperature for consistent development times.-Larry

[Andy Stockton]

I have been thinking about this topic quite a bit lately and it has been frustrating since this is one item I have neither the skills nor the tools to make for myself at present. I had been thinking of finding a custom fabricator but was not looking forward to either the cost or the process of communicating what I needed.

Since cost will be a factor for me I probably would not go 8×10 for a first pot even though I would like to get there eventually when my skills catch up to the challenge. I have started constructing my fume hood and have purposely designed it to be rather large with the big format in mind.

I would probably start with a 5×7 capable unit with reducers for sixth plate and for 4×5 (if that is possible). I would prefer electric heating even though that would raise the cost. The alcohol lamp seems like just one more thing to keep track of in a complex process not to mention adding an open flame to the environment.

What I had been thinking of for heating was some kind of larger lab hotplate though that could also be used for gilding. So on second thought maybe a pot without an integral heater would be ok. (However I don’t know if a hot plate would work for gilding or if a wide hotplate would heat the narrow bottom of the mercury pot very well. — as usual more questions than answers).

Another design thought I had was to create a mercury pot "base" with thermometer port that was detachable from the "inverted pyramid’ part of the unit. This would allow you to fabricate multiple "format sections" for less total investment. Add a screw-on cap to cover the mercury and an integral heater and you would have a multi-purpose unit that could be adapted to many formats.

Whatever you decide to do I will follow with interest and would be happy to discuss further offline or on the forum.

[pruts]

Hello from Belgium,
I am a newbie on this forum. How far is this project with the mercurypot?
I am interested in amodel with elctric warming and size of 4×5 and 8×10.

Have a nice day over there …

Marc

[daniel]

Here is a whole plate pot that was made by my friend Rusty in Seattle. It cost $500 bucks to fabricate. The mercury cup is a cast iron pipe cap welded to the base that has a screw on lid when not in use. The wooden seat and plate holder with a double darkslide was made by me using walnut picture molding. Rusty is ready and willing to make more.

 

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[Mike Robinson]

Hi All,

 

Rustys’ pot looks like it will do fine. one thing to consider is smoothing out the inside seams and corners so that condensate mercury can be swabbed down back into the cup. This of course complicates he design of the cup attachment to the base. In the ones my brother-in-law used to make there was and o-ring seal on the top face of the cup and a smooth flange. see pic Hg_cup

 

Also I will share with you my new bath design that I made for my Lacock workshop. (its actually my first mercury pot with a new wooden casing. Designed to develop by inspection if so desired. It can be heated by an alcohol lamp or a coffee cup heater or hot plate on a dimmer switch. The side legs extend or contract as desired. The front window is yellow with a sliding door to peak in at the developing plate.

 

best

 

Mike

 

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[daniel]

wow- that pot looks amazing.

The cap to my mercury cup also has an o-ring and I have tested it with water to see if it leaks. The inside of the pot is actually very smooth but the corners are sharp but I shouldn’t have any problems getting cotton balls to conform to the corners. The cup at the bottom does protrude a

little into the pot so we will see how that all works out. I hoped to just put mercury into the cup once and leaving it there. I have yet to use it and it will probably be another couple of months until I order some of those clad plates from you and developing the first daguerreotype- By the way, it was a pleasure taking that workshop at the Eastman House.

Thanks, Dan

[fluidrive]

I have seen Mike’s new Hg set up, very slick, i love the idea of being able to watch the plate develop.

 

I post my own frankenstein here. It has a removable pot cut from a stainless expresso stovetop maker complete with spare gaskets and the thermometer fitted through the heat valve. The sides are welded aluminum with a stainless darkslide at the top and brass inserts for the various formats.

 

curts

 

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[photolytic]

Better line this with epoxy.

Mercury reacts with Aluminum!!!

[greg7mdp]

John is right better protect 100% of the aluminum. See this time-lapse video: http://www.ohhaveyouseenthis.com/2009/08/mercury-vs-aluminum.html

greg

[fluidrive]

sorry not paying attention, it is stainless.

thx

for the caution, i need my brain cells, can’t seem to concentrate and type at the same time.

curtis

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