Polishing woes…

[Craig Tuffin]

My first daguerreotypes were, like many others, becquerel. I was polishing by using stitched then unstitched wheels and finishing with a chamois hand buff. I noticed spots and light scratches (in the direction of my final hand Polish) on my plates and desperately tried to improve my method. I then made the transition to doing mercurial d-types and the problem was emphasized.
Finally I decided to change my polishing method entirely and use a random orbital sander with various ultra-suede and velvet covered pads. I’ve kept the chamois hand finishing buff for the final stage but it still leaves fine scratched so I might recover the buff with velvet instead. I’ve spent the last day practicing with my new tools and I can’t seem to remove the light swirls (created by the orbital sander) from the surface.
Does anyone here use that method and would you have any suggestions on how to correctly finish the plate?
Thanks for your time.
Craig

[jgmotamedi]

Hi Craig,

I would suggesting trying something other than chamois on your buffs.

I never had any success with chamois. I tried it multiple times, and always ended up returning to cotton velvet. Microsuede or microfiber cloth might be an alternative that work for you. I have found some that work as as well, and occasionally better than cotton velvet.

Did you see this thread? https://cdags.org/forums/topic/plate-polishing/
Lots of helpful hints on using a random orbit sander. That said, I never liked the results I got from my sander, and returned to 6″ wheels. I too struggled with swirly marks, and even when I got rid of them found the polish always felt flat.

[Craig Tuffin]

Thanks for the reply and the link. It seems my ‘search’ skills on cdags leave a lot to be desired.

I’ve now got a few new things to try, one of them a recovered final buffing pad. Damn that Jerry and his incredibly well polished plates. I guess a couple of decades of experience do help though 🙂

[nawagi]

Craig-

I’ve found that using microfiber ultrasuede (Suedine) on the final buffs works well. Like Jason, I tried using chamois for a season and abandoned it due to repeated fails. You may want to check out this site:

https://tallerdaguerrotipo.wordpress.com

While he’s just working on Beq’s, his polishing technique produces terrific plates.

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