new commer has questions

[photolytic]

The shiny silver spots on your plate are caused by droplets of liquid mercury falling on the plate from the top or sides of your mercury box. Periodically you need to wipe the inside of the mercury box to remove liquid mercury that has condensed there before it has a chance to fall on your plates. Before you fix your plates you can sometimes remove the mercury droplets from the plate by holding it vertically and banging it several times on the side of the mercury box. Due to their high surface tension, the mercury droplets usually do not wet surface of the plate and form the shiny spots until you put the plate in the fixer.

[Pobboravsky]

I believe you are gilding too long if the gilding solution boils. You may need to modify the gilding time-temperature for your conditions but I stop gilding when the solution reaches 60 degrees Celsius. I pour distilled water into my gilding tray (which contains the plate + gilding solution) to stop the gilding process. I use an infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of the gilding solution; it does not require putting the thermometer into the solution — you can measure the temperature by holding the infrared thermometer about 8 centimeters above the gilding solution. My infrared thermometer was made in China.

My congratulations on your progress and good luck.

[newone2010]

Hi Greg and Pobborasky,

The plates just have one side silvered.As greg said,maybe I need a tradional gilding stand.

Before that, I am considering of that let a plate has back filmed,then put it into the solution for gilding.

Yesterday,I just tried the mixture 4:1,it looked work well.I do not know whether the yellow color caused by gold or copper.I need more practise.If 4:1 mixture dose work well,I will let you know,and all of us can save money from the expensive gold chloride.

I polished brass plates well this time,they will be sent to be silvered the next 3 days.I think I will get Hi-Q silvered plates this time.

Making dags are really difficult,only the first step,polishing cooper(brass) plates needs much practice to get good conditional plates.

I am really happy I have progress and get so much help by the members of dag fourm.

Thanks a lot to all of you, I will be back soon!

Li Junyi

[newone2010]

Here are the two dags I made today.

The color is golden color.The scaner change the color a little bit green.

They looks much more better in fact than the images after scanning.

So I am considering of that I take photos but not scan them.

How do others digital dags?

Over-gilding,these two.

I make the gilding solution sodium thiosulfate:gold chloride 4:1.It really worked,though I gilded them too much.

[greg7mdp]

Hi Li,

you are right, your plates are getting better and better, and I am not saying that only because your model is getting more and more undressed 🙂

 

Good job!

 

greg

 

[newone2010]

Hi Greg,

You are so humorous.

I can not gild the plate well. I don’t know what the time point to stop.I watched the “stain” carefully,but it didn’t disappear when I continued to heating.I thought it caused by the dirty plates(still red rouge left and bad silver electrofacing which left some dirty black and grey water mark and spots between the silver and brass.

That’s why I always gild the plates too much.

Thank you for your help. I will be back soon with the next problems and questions. 😆

best,

Li Junyi

[greg7mdp]

It is very hard to know when to stop gilding. You always hope the plate will improve, which it does… until it gets worse and it is too late.

When I have a good plate, I stop gilding at 3 minutes, and I don’t heat the plate like crazy. After about 1min to 90s, I start seeing a few bubbles caused by the heating. That should give you an idea. That’s for a whole plate, so for a 4×5 I would stop sooner, around 2 minutes).

I would advise you to use a gilding stand (because your plates are not silvered in the back), and also to heat more gently and stop gilding sooner.

greg

[newone2010]

Okay,I will try another today,stop gilding in about 3 minutes.I will make a gilding stand too.Thank you so much!

[newone2010]

I changed the color in PS.Now it looks like more close to the right color in fact.

[newone2010]

This is the one I made today:

the scanning is very bad

it left so much dust on the image and lose lots of details

it looks much better in fact

I still have problems in cleaning the rouge and plate polishing

but I am so glad this one looks so great in fact

I will try other technique of digitalizing a dag.

Hi Greg,

Do you find at the right bottom of this dag has “stains” on the plate. It came out when I gilding it.Is it the “stains” which others mentioned in the process of gilding or it was just caused by the rest rouge?

I left some rouge back of the plate after polishing.It came on the image after I fixed the dag.It left pink color on the edge of the plate.I thought it polluted the image and left “stains” or “water marks” on the plate.

best,

Li Junyi

[greg7mdp]

Hi Li,

You are experiencing the difficulty of the daguerreotype process. Many things can go wrong, and often will. But when the planets align and all goes well, you are holding a miracle in your hands. That makes all these efforts worthwhile.

About the gilding stain. It is hard to tell from your scan, but if you see a cloudy white stain that seems to partially block the image, then yes this is a classic gilding issue. This normally happens when gilding for too long, or when the gilding solution is too acidic. Try adding some dilute NaOH (sodium hydroxyde).

Still it is easy to see your daily progress. If you continue at this rate and don’t get discouraged, I am sure you will keep getting better and soon make very nice dags.

All the best,

greg

[newone2010]

Hi everyone,

I come back with new problems.Please check the 3 images bellow.(it was taken under filament lamp(about 3200K)

 

I made a dag today afternoon. When I took it out of mercury pot,I found there were some white spots on the plate.I fixed the plate,and wiped the image.I want to know whether these spots can be wipe put as the images on plates,but I was failed.They were still there.I watch these spots carefully,I found there was a very tiny black spot in the middle of each white spot,just like was pricked by a syringe needle.

 

What are the white spots?

 

best,

 

Li Junyi

 

 

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[CasedImage]

Does the mercury pot you are using have a double dark slide? – when you slide it back and forth it may be making the pot bounce a bit. This causes the mercury to move/slop around in the pot. Mercury behaves very oddly as a liquid, small globules bounce around and up from the bottom of the pot. I think your white spots are the mercury hitting the plate. As Photolytic recently noted , keep the pot walls free of mercury – inspect it regularly and use a pit of paper to push globules back down to the bottom of the pot. Beware of mercury physically and atmospherically, it is both the enemy and the calvary.

www.CasedImage.com

[newone2010]

Thanks, Key Msater.

My mercury pot just has one slide,which was made from stainless steel(is it bad?).When I pull it out and push it back,the post shake,just a little bit.Before I make a new mercury pot whith double slide,I will try without a slide,just put the dag on the Hg vapor when the temperature raise up to 70 degree Celsius.I know it is really dangerous. 😡

best,

Li Junyi

[newone2010]

I tried another,but failed too. This time.the spots came out just after Br!!!!!What a serious problems!!!!!

Who can help me?

[Jon Lewis]

Perhaps the spots are due to sulfide contamination of the silver. How are you storing the plates? Maybe buffing them more before sensitizing will help.

[Andy Stockton]

I am out of my depth here, but those look like holes to me in the picture with the highest magnification. Is it possible that there are pinholes in the silver and this is a reaction with the copper?

[newone2010]

They are not pinholes in the silver.The spots were just on the surface. Mr.Jon Lewis said perhaps the spots are due to sulfide contamination of the silver.I thought it maybe caused by my gloves.My wife bought gloves for me.Today,she just told me these gloves had some kind of powder on.(very tiny,can’t be seen if not carefully).I thought this might be the key.

I just have 2 plates left now,and I will try one this afternoon.Hope I have good luck.

Thank you all so much!I know I will have more questions and back for help.

[newone2010]

Hi Andy and everyone,

I came out from the darkroom just 1 minutes ago.I didn’t wear gloves and polished the plate well,but the problem was still there!

I thought about the pinholes you mentioned again.

---

back in few minutes

---

I had a phone call with the guy who make electroplate for me few minutes gao. He told me before electroplating the silver,he electroplated a thin layer of nickel (Ni).He said after that,I can get a shinny ,bright,almost mirror surface plate. When I get the plates( 15 plates with Ni), I did found that they looked better than the plates which were electroplated before.I was so glad and call him for thanks and asked him how he let these plates looked so great.He laughed and told me he had a little secret.

I discussed with him,and he said NiI2 was black.I looked over the plate.Each white spot has a very tiny black point in the middle and a circle of white or shinny ring around.Is it caused by NiI2 or Ni-Br? When I took the plates out of Br or I,I found the spots formed.I put the plates in camera , exposured, took them back to darkroom,I found more spots formed.I thought it would become more and more by time passing.

This guy said it was not caused by Ni, the silver layer was on the whole plate above Ni and had no pinholes.He refused to confirm he made mistakes.

I think it maybe caused by something else,but Ni is the first suspect,but I am still confused why the first few plates had much less spots.

If the Ni really works well,and my problem are caused by something else,all of you can try it;If the Ni really works well,but just my silver electroplating has pinholes but you can make it without pinholes,you can try it too.It really let the plates looks well and just need less than 3 minutes to be hand polished.I think it will be helpful specially for the large size dags which need to be hard polished.

Anyway,I can get some plates without Ni about 5 days later.We can see the results at that time.

What do you think about it?Look forward to hear your opinions.

best,

Li Junyi

PS: My English is not good,hope all of you can understand what I said.If any words make you unpleasant

,please do not mind.

[Pobboravsky]

Have a few plates silver plated by a different electroplater. Polish the copper or brass before giving them to the electroplater. Good luck.

[newone2010]

exposure is just fine

bad plate condition

bad polishing

bad silver electroplating

I will find a way to solve all these problems

[Pobboravsky]

Hi Li,

Your sensitizing, exposure, development and gilding are quite good now. I congratulate you. To avoid defects in the image, the surface quality of the copper must first be improved.

Carefully examine the surface of the copper (or brass) before silver plating. If the copper has deep scratches or other surface imperfections – the plated silver will also have the identical surface imperfections. Start with copper that has the best surface quality. Then polish the copper to remove the major scratches and imperfections. If possible have the plating shop polish the copper before silver plating.

Please describe: (1) the surface quality of the copper you are using, and (2) the polishing method used to remove the imperfections. Please provide a scan of the copper surface after polishing.

A copper surface without deep surface imperfections will produce a better electroplated silver surface that will be far easier to polish. This is true whether you do the electroplating or you have the silver plating done by a plating shop.

Good Luck

Irv

[newone2010]

Hi Irv,

Thank you for your advices.I get headache.The plater will not help me now.I spent 4 days for waiting him around his little factory.I called him many times,he just answered me power cut of his factory.

I will find another electro plater and it will cost lots of time.

The copper polishing were not good before,but I make them more better now.I have polished over 15 plates this time.

I know before electroplating,the plates must do not have polishing wax and oil left.The plater who help me before can not clean them.After clean,he left stains on the plates and the color of brass or cooper changed and it will be seen after silver plating partly .Although I do not know what kind of cleaning agent and method he used,I can say it must be wrong.

I looked over this forum.I found most of the members asked for 1 mil silver on each plate and each plate can be repolished several times.The plater tell me he made the silver really thick,around 4-7 mil.unfortunately I found the plates I got can be polished just one time,and copper came out some times.I thought he was a not honest man.In china,unscrupulous merchant is everywhere.Most Chinese people become more and more faithless under the control of C-party.Sigh…

Hope I can find a good plater tomorrow.

all the best,

Li Junyi

[newone2010]

I have 2 plates left from my first plater,and take a shoot yesterday night.

I have the same problems:

bad polishing,bad plating…

no-gilding

 

One point: I use bromine water this time,not bromine.It looks has the same result as bromine.Bromine water is much more safer.

 

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[Pobboravsky]

Hi Li,

Making daguerreotypes, especially when just starting, is very frustrating wherever you live. You are working very hard and you are making progress.

Your last daguerreotype has fewer scratches. However my guess is that you need to further improve the surface quality of the plate.

You will see the most improvement by doing a better job of polishing.

If this image was not gilded it will be easier to polish off the image and then work at removing the remaining scratches. Good luck. Do not gild until you have mastered the polishing step. Good luck.

Irv

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