[Andy Stockton]

Welcome Jalo. Best of luck with your search. It sounds like you are off to a very good start by taking a class from Mike. The equipment is always a challenge but you will find a lot of info on the resource pages and many gems tucked away in the forums.

[Andy Stockton]

Caswell has a lot of info.

http://www.caswellplating.com

[Andy Stockton]

I have had trouble distinguishing color cycle changes when looking directly at the plate. The “white surface” method photolytic mentions above is very helpful. I add to the method by pointing my white light at a fumed plate and an unfumed plate at the same time. Just place the plates side by side. I reflect the light from both plates onto a piece of white card stock taped to the side of the fume hood. Having a comparison plate made it very easy for me to see the color difference.

[Andy Stockton]

Hi Kaden & Bakody. Welcome to the CDags forum. We hope you enjoy the resources here and find all the guidance you need to speed you on the way to making daguerreotypes. Please be sure you share your process as you progress, we all can learn more about this demanding art form. And of course feel free to ask questions.

Kaden – as a fellow Bay Area resident I will look forward in the future to seeing your work in person. We are getting quite a little crowd of practitioners out here.

[Andy Stockton]

Hi Matt- Welcome. It sounds like you have a good set of starting ingredients. I hope you will find lots of experienced help here to speed you on your quest. I especially recommend the resources pages – there are articles from leading practitioners that are worth multiple re-reads. The challenges are many, but the rewards are great.

Unless you are speedier than most you may find that the wedding gift becomes an anniversary gift but please feel free to prove me wrong…

Andy

[Andy Stockton]

Hi Christian-

No, there was no issue with me taking the bromine home. The business vs residence difficulty only comes up because truck shippers in general do not want to deliver anything to a residence (not just chemicals). They can’t afford to have drivers making multiple trips because no one is at home. Since I was picking it up myself from the store, that wasn’t a problem.

A meetup is a good goal, but will probably have to wait for a while as far as my participation is concerned. The two jobs I have keep me tied up most of the time (have to pay for daguerreian adventures somehow). Still – we are approaching enough practitioners in the Bay Area to have a quorum.

[Andy Stockton]

Hi Christian-

I live in the SF Bay Area and last purchased elemental bromine from San Jose Scientific in Santa Clara. It is a supply house for school labs and hobbyists. This is the web link: http://www.sanjosescientific.com. They do not sell bromine on the website.

If I am remembering correctly I had to actually go to the store and explain what I was doing and they ordered the bromine and had it shipped to the store. I then went and picked it up. I ordered a 250 gram bottle and I have mercifully forgotten what it cost. The bulk of the cost, as Rob mentions, was for the hazmat shipping.

If you would like to see my blog post and pictures of unpacking the shipping container, the link is http://www.thedaguerreotypist.com/tdg1/wordpress/2009/04/06/dsn/

Good luck, hopefully the legal restrictions haven’t driven them away from selling it.

Obligatory safety note: Please study an MSDS for bromine if you haven’t done so already http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Bromine-9927659 , and consider that you may want to store it in a locked cabinet outside of your house. The Alfa Aesar bottle I received had a cap failure within a couple of months. There is a reason they pack bromine so carefully. Mercury can damage you over time, but bromine handled incorrectly can send you to the ER in minutes. Sermon over, that is my Public Health Nurse background talking.

Cheers,

Andy

[Andy Stockton]

1) What size plate do you usually use?

35 mm “micro-plate” actual size 1.53″x1.06″

2) Is material cost a factor in your plate size choice?

Yes. While I am in the early stages of learning, I like the low cost of the very

small plates. Beyond that cost effects the number of plates I can afford to buy but

my current equipment and the subject and purpose of the image determine the plate

size I use.

3) Are you limited to a specific size due to equipment constraints?

I have a couple of 35mm cameras for the micro plates. The widest aperture lens I own

(f/1.2)fits the 35 mm. My 8×10 camera has an f/2.8 lens that will cover up to 4×5 with

slight falloff at the edge. My fuming box will take up to sixth plate. At present I

have everything to take up to sixth plate and am working on equipment to take up to 4×5.

My mercury fumer can take 8×10. Available equipment dictates maximum plate size.

4) Do you get better results using a certain size plate?

No.

[Andy Stockton]

http://www.autochromes.fr/english/def.html

[Andy Stockton]

There are also 3 Italian daguerreotypists with galleries listed on the front page.

Rossano Bertolo

Giancarlo De Noia

Beniamino Terraneo

Additional research may help you contact them about resources within Italy.

[Andy Stockton]

http://forum.caswellplating.com/electroplating-questions/

[Andy Stockton]

Hello Giovana, welcome to CDags. Many of us here share your feelings about the particular beauty of daguerreotypes and of being somewhat overwhelmed by the flood of digital imagery. This medium is definitely a path to unique and compelling art. The editors Alan, Jon and I are glad you are finding the site useful and hope that you will feel free to join in to the discussions in the forums as you progress.

[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?

[Andy Stockton]

Welcome to CDags Li Junyi. There are currently 184 registered site members and there is a wealth of information on the site for persons interested in creating contemporary daguerreotypes. The give and take in the forums can be very enlightening. Please feel free to share your progress, ask questions, and answer others as you learn more. Enjoy!

[Andy Stockton]

Thanks photolytic. Your information is helpful as always. I will post some pictures when I am done with the fuming box.

[Andy Stockton]

Photolytic, based on what you say about stratification, is there an optimum distance between plate and iodine/bromine? Your science based answers are always so helpful to me.

I have read numerous different suggestions concerning methods for getting an even coating and some suggest that plates too close to the iodine/bromine can get “spots”. Several have said covering the iodine crystals with a cotton layer helps with evenness of the coating. How would iodine gas cause spotting regardless of the distance?

Any further thoughts you care to share would be most welcome. I am working on a new fuming box design since I need a new one and have wondered about the z dimension. The plate size sets x and y, but the height seems rather arbitrary.

[Andy Stockton]

What a great approach.

[Andy Stockton]

Yes, it does have that look. Lovely mounting – is that matte etched brass?

[Andy Stockton]

Hello Daniel. Happy new year. For many the road is long, but I for one find it enjoyable. Welcome aboard and feel free to ask questions.

[Andy Stockton]

What makes this design interesting to me is that it is a thoughtful hybrid of the strike-through and European styles. I don’t personally like the strike-through because it takes a lot of room to store and operate. The European style tends more toward leaks and the plate is still is being fumed somewhat even when the glass slide is closed – rendering fuming precision very difficult. This design takes 1/3 less space to operate and store and it eliminates the “fuming by leakage” problem of the European design. To me these advantages outweigh the additional movements required. After all, it’s not like anyone is making hundreds of plates a day. The need to add a stop to the glass plate seems a valid criticism, but can be taken care of a number of different ways.

[Andy Stockton]

Looks like a very fine piece, just like your cameras. The offset finger cutouts for the sliding covers are a nice touch. It is great that you are making these available.

[Andy Stockton]

Here is a link to the thread on the issue that we had a while back.

http://www.cdags.org/dagforum/topic.php?id=169#post-2992

I’m not quite sure why a search on the word “LED” didn’t turn it up. Perhaps we will need to do some troubleshooting of the database search function.

In the meantime that link should answer some of your questions.

[Andy Stockton]

It is usually white and fairly expensive, but will stand up to both Iodine and Bromine. Here is a link to one supplier that actually quotes prices:

http://www.eplastics.com/Plastic?search=teflon

[Andy Stockton]

Jason – I am curious – on your Acrylic fuming boxes did you use any kind of screwdown or spring or any other device to put pressure on the slides when the box was not in use – for a tighter seal?

Any pictures you care to share?

[Andy Stockton]

Hi Ty-

I hope you will get some discussion going here – particularly from those with a lot of experience. We need more people making daguerreotype equipment.

I will make a couple of observations from my relatively limited experience:

1) I am skeptical of any iodine fuming box design that makes use of much metal. Iodine attacks most metals and corrodes them beyond recognition pretty quickly. That’s why I suspect the boxes with springs under the glass dish won’t last very long. Perhaps someone with greater experience will speak to this – especially if there are metals that are more resistant to the corrosive effects of iodine. Stainless steel?

2) All the designs I have seen use a glass-glass seal and both sides are generally ground.

3) If you decide to make a “spring type” I think you would have trouble with the dish “popping up” if you open the slide too far, as you mention.

4) I have wondered if square glass vases would be a better choice than a pyrex baking dish for making fuming boxes. They come in a wide array of sizes and are deeper than the pans. Older fuming box designs look like they had more distance between the iodine and the plate. Some people have written that the iodine being too close to the plate can cause problems with uneven fuming or spotting of the plate.

Here are a couple of sources of square glass vases:

http://www.dfwvases.com/Cube_Glass_Vases-Cube_Glass_Vase_8_x_8_x_8_4_p_c.html

http://www.russwholesaleflowers.com/glass-vases

5) I have also wondered if plastic fuming boxes would work well. In chemical resistance tables acrylic is usable with iodine, and Type II PVC will supposedly work with Bromine. I am experimenting with both of these myself, but have not made the boxes yet. I may construct the entire boxes out of plastic, including plastic hinges. For those attracted to the aesthetics of wood, the inner box could be plastic with an outer box of wood. I like the idea of fabricating my inner box of plastic because then I can dimension it exactly as I like rather than having to adapt to a glass container of some arbitrary size.

6) Some say that the “strike-through” design (such as Eugene Galasso’s boxes) gives a more precise control of fuming, because the plate slides completely out and away from the fumes.

I hope these comments are helpful, and I hope others will chime in as well. It would be great if there were more fabricators at work.

[Author]

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