Plate Holder for Polishing

[Jon Lewis]

After pondering long and hard about what size plates I should learn on I have decided to go with 6cm x 6cm (2 1/4" x 2 1/4"). This will allow me to expose the plate in my 6×6 camera which has a reasonably fast lens of 2.8. My question is how would you polish a plate this small? I see here that Jonathan’s plates are on some sort of wooden block that is easier to hold that a tiny piece of silver would be. Is this block a standard piece of polishing equipment? How is the plate fastened to the block so it doesn’t go flying into the floor? Are there other ways of accomplishing the same thing?
Thanks!

[drdag]

I use a flat sheet of MDF just about 1/2 an inch wider all around than the plate. I hold the plate tightly with my thumbs at the top edge. I then turn and repeat , as you can’t polish the bit where your thumbs are. If you are precious about your nails you can wear some latex or preferably nitrile disposable gloves. When I polish on the velvet by hand I use all the fingers on both hands distributed on the back of the plate. In your case it will be only 1 hand. I have never seen the need for a plate holder to polish, others do tho’, it is a matter of persnoanl preference. Incidently I have different backing boards for the different compunds.

[botticelli1972]

I use 4" wide jaw Vice Grips and 1/8 thick stainless steel plate as the backer. I have pieces of stainless for each size plate and one pair of Vice Grips. It is similar to clamps sold in the 19th century though the grips and the backing plate were one casting on the historic pieces. There is an example of this type of historic holder on the newdags site. The modern Vice Grips are sold for bending sheet metal and make a great handle to hold on to. They do do some damage to the plate surface, but I only use them at the extreme edge and that area is covered by either a mat or the rabbet of the frame if left un-matted.

If you look at the reverse of historic plates often you will see red sealing wax residue. This was used to mount the plates to a wooden dowel for polishing. Remember they didn’t use high speed buffers that would make heat to melt the wax, just slow steam and treadle power buffers and lots of hand polishing. Also, they bent the edges of the plates rearward and cut the corners off to keep the plates from catching the buffs and pulling them off the wax/dowel. This wax method is also why many historic plates are bent and wavy, they just yanked it off at the end.

[jdanforth]

I learned that polishing block trick from Jerry Spagnoli. The plate holder is a small piece of wood glued to another piece of wood that is slightly larger than the plate size. I have one for 4×5 and smaller; one for whole plate and smaller; and one for 8×10 and smaller.

It strikes me now that screwing a cabinet handle (the D-shaped kind) to the bottom could prove to be a whole lot more controllable.

I just nail the plate down with little tacks to hold it in place. It works pretty well.

[70’s Dager]

Hello,
My way is quite a simple one; a wood block about the same size as the given plate size; I first dril a center hole to allow a screw to pass thru to the wood handle at the other side. I then cover the wood surface that will hold the plate with strong cloth base tape; and I wrap all the edges so that there are no lose ends anywhere, and then use short strips of two-faced tape to hole the plate. Two strips of the two-faced tape will do just fine, but be sure to remove after each use, I found that the second effort did not work well, use more tape. I have two holders; one is for the 2 1/2" square plates, and the other is for 4X5 plates, both holders hold the plates in place while I use my 3/4 horse motor to polish my plates.
Walter Johnson

[Andy Stockton]

Just to add a point of interest to the conversation, I noticed that Carlos Darío Albornoz has a picture of some kind of clamping holder for plate polishing on his site. The link is:

http://www.dagsargentinos.com.ar/materiales_ing.htm

It is the first picture on the page. His site BTW is well worth a visit if you haven’t yet had the chance.

[Jon Lewis]

The first plates I’m going to polish (this week I hope!) are pure fine silver and they’re extremely soft. The biggest thing I’m worried about when using a plate holder is that the plate will bend when I take it off the holder. On the other hand I don’t want it coming loose and turning into a crumpled pile of silver on floor. Perhaps I’ll try to use tiny screws to screw the corners to a block of wood. The clamping device used by Carlos Darío Albornoz looks very intriguing and does anyone here know what it’s called?

[CasedImage]

I use thin clad plates and use a simple plate polishing block of clear acrylic the same size as the plate. Two 5mm strips along the long edges of the face of the acrylic sheet secure the plate in position. The surface of the acrylic in between the strips has single sided adhesive on it, so the plate sits on a uniform flat surface while polishing. To dismount the plate I use a thin micro spatula tool to prise the plate off. This doesn’t damage the plate and the simplicity works for me. Some double sided tapes don’t work so well, 3M double sided tape works the best.

www.CasedImage.com

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