[dagist]

Lacey,

 

Check on the DagForum here for the topic “Where can I buy some plates?” Near the bottom of the discussion I posted some info and a picture of the shear I use.

 

http://www.cdags.org/dagforum/topic.php?id=303

 

If your copper isn’t thick like mine (18 gauge), you won’t need a shear as massive as I use.

 

Good luck and welcome to the world and art of daguerreotypy.

 

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

 

[dagist]

Dear Pollywog,

You have produced some beautiful sensitizing boxes that have a wonderful old-school (19th century) look to them.

I have a couple questions. I can't tell from your photos how a plate is prevented from falling through the opening in the nesting plate holders. I'm assuming you have at least two (hopefully four) rails or rabbets in the openings of each of your plate holder sizes, or small wires in the corners, but they aren't visible in your photos.

I ask this because it's aesthetically more pleasing when the sensitized area of the plate has an even border of non-sensitization around the entire perimeter (all four sides) of the plate instead of just on two sides or with a corner holding method. Can you post another photo that shows how the plate is held in?

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to prevent iodine from leaking out of the boxes when not in use (and while in use) which is usually accomplished by some type of screw-clamp from above, or spring pressure from underneath, the iodine dish. Do you have an idea for accomplishing this? I don't know of any glass or Pyrex dishes that have airtight lids and I'm not sure how suitable the Tupperware you mentioned will be for long-term iodine or bromine storage.

Have you come up with a final price for your new boxes; is there a discount if someone purchases two boxes to accommodate their iodine and bromine? What are the dimensions of the plate holders that will come with each box? A shipping price per box to the US would also be helpful.

Thanks for taking the initiative to produce new sensitizing boxes and make them available to the many potential new daguerreians who have become fascinated by the process and want to produce images for themselves.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Sal,

Jerry Spagnoli is the master and has his studio on West 26th St. in NYC. If he's in town, and available, a daguerreotype by Jerry will be one of your sister and her husband's most treasured wedding gifts.

Good luck,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Dan,

VERY bright focused-spotlights that only light up the images themselves is the best. The brighter the better. Or in other words, the more powerful a spotlight you can shine on a daguerreotype – the better it will look in a gallery setting, especially if the gallery has white walls, which is almost always the case these days.

A white-walled gallery is exactly what you DON’T want when displaying daguerreotypes though. My gallery has all its walls and ceiling painted black so that my images will look the best from any viewing angle and have maximum contrast.

When you light your daguerreotypes, don’t let the spotlights spill onto the wall surrounding the images because that spill-light will raise the ambient light level of the room – resulting in a lowering of the apparent contrast of your images. Essentially, the black areas of your image will look greyer and greyer as the ambient light level gets higher.

The darker the gallery’s light level, and darker the walls are, the better your daguerreotypes will look, and the better the images’ contrast will be. Combine that with powerful focused spotlights and your images will look great.

If you are stuck exhibiting in a bright white-walled space with high ambient light, then you have a challenge on your hands to get enough light on each image that it can overpower the ambient light. You may have to position bright spot lights within a foot of each daguerreotype in order to get the daguerreotypes to look reasonably okay in a brightly lit room.

Good luck,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Yes, John, you are correct. With the cold mercury development technique you developed, you could put more than one plate inside your vacuum dessicator and they would all process at the same time using the same volume of mercury vapor. I should have qualified my statement by specifying that mercury-developed daguerreotypes (which are over 99% of all daguerreotypes ever made) were only processed one at a time.

Even Becquerel-developed daguerreotypes are rarely (if ever) developed using some multiple-plate device. Yes, you can put multiple filters over multiple plates and expose them to the sun or other light source at the same time, but I would consider that type of development to be individual development because they are usually just the individual plate holders being used to develop one image per plate holder.

If I had more than one mercury box and developed a plate in each box at the same time, I would still consider the plates to be individually developed; they each have their own unique developing chamber.

Cheers,

Rob

[dagist]

Chris,

Development tanks like you have were never used in the daguerreian era. Nor are they used by modern daguerreotypists.

The reason is, is because your tanks are designed to process (develop) multiple glass-plate negatives all at once. That is what all those slots are for; multiple plates all processed at the same time. That type of multiple-plate development is not part of the daguerreotype process.

On the contrary, daguerreotypes are always developed one at a time (not in multiples) and the development process is not done by immersing the daguerreotype in a liquid. Daguerreotypes are developed using either the vapor of heated mercury or bright light through a filter.

Hopefully that will clear things up for you.

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Hi Creedsd (not sure of your name),

Those are post-1900 development tanks for glass plate negatives, probably from the 1920s or 1930s. Each tank would have been filled up with liquid developer, stop bath, fixer (hypo), or water. The rack (containing the plates to be developed) would be lowered into the required solutions using the wire handles on top of the racks (as shown in your second photo). The lids were put on top to keep the light out and to minimize evaporation.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Dafna,

To filter the layer of scum that forms on top of your mercury, you can also use regular typing/copy paper instead of laboratory filter paper. Simply cut a sheet of 8½” x 11″ paper in-half, giving you two 5½” x 8½” sheets. Fold the individual sheets into a funnel shape – leaving a very small hole at one end. Secure it with a single piece of tape and you have an inexpensive mercury filter. Use them once then throw them away.

Experiment with the size of the hole so that the heavy mercury doesn’t flow too fast or too slow. The sludge will stick to the sides of the paper and the mercury will usually be clean after it passes through two new filters.

It only takes a few minutes to complete the whole operation and it is wise to do it on a regular basis (weekly or even daily if you are making lots of dags).

Best of all, typing/copy paper is cheap and always available. I make up a batch of 20-30 filters so I always have them on hand, ready for use.

Thanks go to Ken Nelson for teaching this cheap and easy way to filter your mercury – back when he was first giving daguerreotype workshops at George Eastman House in the late 1990s.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Andy,

 

My metal shear is a foot-operated industrial unit that is built like a tank by a company called Niagara, and can cut up to a 36″ wide piece of US 16-gauge mild steel, according to the descriptive name plate attached to it. The unit itself weighs 700 hundred pounds and is probably 50+ years old. I bought it used for $200.00 from a company that upgraded to a larger hydraulic powered unit. The unit I bought had been used every single day for cutting aluminum duct work for heating systems and it still works perfectly for all my daguerreian needs. The 3′-wide unit is actually quite small compared to most industrial metal shears which are often 10 or 12 feet wide and can weigh well over a ton.

 

The heavy 18-gauge copper I use for my daguerreotype plates (the type sold by Daniel Smith) requires me to jump on the shear’s treadle (foot-bar) with all my weight in order to cut through the thick copper. That’s not a fault or problem, that’s just the way it works. The harder or thicker the metal, the more force you need to apply to the treadle-bar. These days, most shears are powered hydraulically, not manually.

 

I have attached a photo I found online showing the same shear I own.

 

I can’t say that I know what other types of metal shears would do the job equally as well for a daguerreotypist, but I have been very happy with my shear. It cuts super accurately and once you have it perfectly square, you never have to adjust it again.

 

One thing that you must be careful of – is the hold-down bars that all shears have, which hold your work piece from moving or shifting when the piece is sheared. Because the hold-down bars have a tendency to leave a mark on the delicate copper or silver surface, you must figure out a way to hold your copper (or slivered copper) plate in-place without using the hold-down bars. I do it all the time, so yes, it can be done.

 

I hope that helped.

 

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

 

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[dagist]

Ben,

Check out the “Resources” section right here on cdags in the subsection entitled ‘Materials Sources” where you will see companies like McMaster-Carr. I buy my copper from Daniel Smith Art Materials which is considerably less expensive than McMaster-Carr. (Alan, you need to add Daniel Smith to the Materials Sources section.)

Here’s a direct link to Daniel Smith’s page of copper sheets in various sizes, in both mill finish (they call it “Industrial”), and polished on one side. Buy the “Polished Copper Plates” and save yourself a lot of time polishing.

http://www.danielsmith.com/Item–i-G-285-730

Because Daniel Smith cuts down large 4′ x 8′ copper sheets to the sizes shown in their catalog, you can also ask them to cut any custom sizes you may require.

A word of caution regarding plate sizes. Most companies that cut copper plates to-size will have a size-tolerance range that they consider acceptable, usually plus or minus a certain percentage of the specified dimensions. When making daguerreotype plates, we must make sure that the plates will fit inside our plate holders without being too big for the holders, which would render them useless if they don’t fit.

I learned this the hard way (before I owned a metal shear to cut down my own plates), that you must specify a maximum size that the plates must not exceed. If you want 4″x5″ plates, you have to tell them that 4″x5″ is the maximum dimension that can not be exceeded. It’s OK if it’s slightly smaller, but it can’t be slightly bigger, otherwise it might not fit in your plate holder, or your sensitizing boxes, or your mercury chamber, or all three.

Good Luck,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Li,

Dust is the daguerreotypist’s nemesis, as any one of us here will attest.

Each time my daguerreotype plate is introduced to a new step of the process, I blow off the dust. And I mean every time. Between polishing and all buffing steps; prior to and between fuming steps; prior to inserting the plate in the plate holder; and prior to putting it over the mercury. I also blow out my plate holder prior to inserting the plate, and as John mentioned, I blow off the dark slide, both before I insert the plate holder in the camera and also before I re-insert the dark slide after the exposure. This assures me (most of the time) that no airborne particles will have an effect on my image at any stage of the process.

Dust can also land on your plate from inside the camera too, during your exposure. So make sure and keep the inside of your camera dust free.

Something else to consider, is getting rid of the rubber air bulb. Many daguerreotypists use them, and “think” they are removing all the dust on their plates, but they rarely are. Those air bulbs do not put out enough air pressure in a small enough area to blow off the very tiny dust particles. They do a fine job with some big particles that are easily visible, but many of the microscopic particles still remain on the plate. Also, those air bulbs aren’t very accurate with the direction of their airstream because the tip of the bulb tends to flex (pivot) when you squeeze it hard to get full pressure.

Other daguerreotypists may disagree with me on this, but do not be afraid to use compressed air that comes in a can. That is the only thing I use for blowing dust off my plates, and it works phenomenally, providing a strong blast of concentrated air right where you need it. Always use the thin plastic nozzle that comes with the can of air. If you keep the can level and apply only modest pressure on the can’s trigger, you can get a forceful blast that goes right where you aim it. Hold the plate still (perpendicular to the ground), and gently move the can of air back-and-forth across the plate.

If you don’t respect your can of air, you can easily send some of the propellent from the can onto your plate, which will leave a mark. Just develop a technique of gentle trigger pressure and respect, and you will greatly reduce the effects of atmospheric dust on your plates.

The suggestion from others about heating your plate prior to fuming is very helpful for getting an evenly iodized surface. I use a hair dryer and it works great. It is the same hairdryer I use to dry my plates after they are washed. When using the hairdryer to warm the plate prior to iodizing, only heat the back of the plate, do not heat the front. And, after heating it, blow off the front of the plate one more time with your canned air before exposing it to the iodine fumes.

As Mike said, you can make d’types on rainy days. I’ve made several nice rainy day images but your success-percentage diminishes because of the sometimes unpredictable nature of the humidity. It does help to slightly warm the plate before putting it over the mercury, especially if the plate is a little chilly from being outside, but you must be careful, because you don’t want to cause any condensation to form which will adversely affect the image. Again, only heat the back of the plate, and blow off the dust on the front just before you place the plate over the mercury.

Good Luck,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Li,

In my opinion, the best Bosch random orbital sander to use is their model #3725DEVS which has variable speeds from 4,500-12,000 rpm. It is a high quality ROS that has a dual ball bearing design which eliminates any wobble or vibration of the pad (especially important if you use your ROS for final buffing).

I would not suggest getting a ROS which only goes down to 7500 rpm. The 4500 rpm speed can be very useful for gentle polishing and/or buffing. I use three Bosch 3725DEVS’s, two of which are set to their lowest 4500 rpm setting. If you only use the ROS for polishing copper or with Nuvite as Mike does, then you may not need the lower speed settings. For me, they are invaluable.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

My fume hood is exhausted through 6″ PVC sewer pipe, which is the common white PVC, not green like some brands. It is easily procured at any professional plumbing supply house here in the US. It has works extremely well for over 20 years and provides plenty of air flow for my home made hood.

Do not try to save money by using anything smaller than 6″-diameter pipe because it will reduce the airflow considerably and may not provide adequate suction if your fan motor has been properly installed outside (not inside) your building , preferably on the roof.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Hi Li,

Most people are still using a paper tape called Filmoplast P90 to seal their daguerreotypes. It is convenient to use and the tape itself is archival. The trouble I see, is that the P90 tape is not vapor proof. Air can travel through it, which will eventually result in the formation of tarnish on your daguerreotype, just like the tarnish seen on daguerreotypes made in the 1800s.

Another choice is a clear polypropylene tape called J-Lar which some daguerreotypists use.

I invented my own sealing tape to prevent my daguerreotypes from tarnishing. My tape is vapor proof and prevents air incursion into the daguerreotype package. It also has an additional protective layer that scavenges-out any harmful atmospheric vapors that may have been trapped inside the enclosure when it was sealed. Unfortunately, my tape is not yet available for sale so you will have to use one of the other choices.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

The link above doesn’t work on my Mac but this one should:

http://www.cwreenactors.com/phorum/read.php?2,7634

[dagist]

Christian,

The easiest way to purchase bromine and other chemicals, which chemical suppliers have decided not to sell to individuals, is to have a friend at an educational institution (a university, college, or even a high school) call up the chemical supplier and order it for you.

Sometimes the supplier will want the order to go through the school’s purchasing department (which can be a hassle) but often times they won’t. All they really need is to be able to put the school’s name on the invoice; that way, they aren’t violating their company’s protocol.

It’s not illegal to purchase daguerreian chemicals in the US, and I don’t believe the DEA or the DOJ require any paperwork to be filed when purchasing the small quantities we need as daguerreotypists.

In the US, bromine can get expensive, mostly because of its shipping restrictions. It cannot be shipped by any common carrier (USPS, UPS, Fed Ex, etc.) and must be shipped using a carrier (trucking company) that is licensed to haul that specific type of hazardous material. The last time I priced bromine a few years ago, the shipping cost from New Jersey to Buffalo, NY (I think it was $175.00) was more than the cost of the bromine itself.

Good luck. Be persistent and you will find it.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

1) I use primarily 4″ x 5″ and 6.5″ x 8.5″ plates, but also shoot 2.5″ x 2.5″, 2.5″ x 3.5″, and occasionally 1/4 plates.

2) No. The subject matter determines the plate size choice.

3) Not really. I make 2.5″ x 2.5″ up to 8″ x 10″ plates, which is the maximum size my sensitizing boxes and mercury chamber can accommodate.

4) No. Plate size has nothing to do with “better results.” If you can polish a small plate, you can polish a large one, and your results should be the same if your polishing technique is cosistent.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

I’ll be in St. Petersburg in October.

Many thanks to Jeff Green for championing our cause, sponsoring events for us, helping out new image makers as they discover the magic of making daguerreotypes, and for actively collecting the fruits of our labor. His active participation in fostering the success of modern daguerreotypy is the stimulus that is helping to usher in the New Daguerreian Era.

Bravo to Jeff, and the small (but growing) group of astute collectors who recognize the value of a unique, crafted by hand, one of a kind image that has the intrinsic ability to engender wonderment simply from the process itself. Combine that with a compelling image, and you have the magic that is the daguerreotype.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Li,

If your base metal is copper, then there is no need to electroplate a layer of nickel on it before electroplating it with fine silver. Nickel is used as a thin intermediary “strike layer” between some metals, but it is NOT required if you are putting silver onto copper.

A thin strike layer (such as nickel) is often put onto an item before it is introduced to the full-strength plating bath because it provides for better adhesion between the two metals and a more even/consistent plating.

When putting silver onto copper, and instead of using nickel (because it isn’t necessary), many electroplaters will put the item (a daguerreotype plate in our case) into a preliminary “sliver strike” bath (formulated differently than the full-strength electroplating bath), before the item is introduced into the full-strength silver bath.

You may want to ask your platers if they can do a “silver strike” instead of a “nickel strike” on your plates.

Good Luck,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Chad,

I have used year-old gold chloride stock solution with no noticeable ill effects. But, you should NOT use old sodium thiosulfate solution. If you still have a partial bottle of the sodium thiosulfate stock solution from a year ago (or even a couple months ago), throw it out and mix up a fresh batch, especially if you can detect a rotten egg (sulfur) smell.

Another key to minimizing gilding spots, is to always filter your mixed gilding solution just before use.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

If you are going to use iodine crystals in your fuming box, as most of us do, place a layer of cheesecloth over the crystals; lay it right on top of the crystals themselves. This does two things. Not only does it theoretically help to diffuse/even-out the vapors in the box, but it also helps to keep the iodine crystals from moving around and becoming unevenly distributed if you move your box from place to place.

The cheesecloth trick is especially helpful if you plan on traveling with your iodine box. My sensitizing boxes move back and forth from my lab to the portable daguerreian darkroom in my van, and without the cheesecloth, the iodine crystals would be clumped up in random piles from driving around.

I’ve had the same piece of cheesecloth (now brown and saturated with iodine) in my fuming box for over 10 years and my plates are almost always evenly sensitized from edge-to-edge. Rarely do I ever get blotchy patches on the plate from uneven sensitization, where one area turns color before another. A smooth, evenly-saturated color, covering the entire surface of the plate, is ideal.

Pre-heating your plate just before sensitization is also helpful in achieving even sensitization.

I agree with John’s suggestion of between 3 and 4 inches for the distance between the iodine crystals and the plate. That gives the box plenty of volume with which to more-evenly disperse the vapors from below.

Good luck,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Mike,

I will gladly participate in a juried exhibition.

If the exhibit does come to fruition, it would be great if there was a way for the exhibit to be included as an integral part of the Daguerreian Society Symposium, instead of just a place to visit while people were in Atlanta. Could the opening night Symposium reception be held there, or possibly some other Symposium event?

The Terminus is a very prestigious and impressive place, with upscale condominiums, restaurants and businesses. Lots of people would be exposed to the daguerreotype for the first time if we were able to secure this space for a three-month exhibit. I don’t know where the proposed hallway cases are located within the large complex of modern buildings known as Atlanta’s Terminus, but it seems like a win-win situation for everyone.

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Jason,

You are very fortunate to have a quad-head that can output up to 9600 watt-seconds of light as a single light source, which is then softened by increasing the diameter of the light to 22″ through the use of Speedotron’s Beauty Dish reflector. That is an ideal daguerreian light source, providing lots of power in a single source.

You may want to start a new DagForum topic, if the use of electronic flash with the daguerreotype is of interest to others.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Andy,

You wrote, “Does it matter if it receives its “dose of light energy” in a very short period of time (strobe) as opposed to a longer one (sunshine)?” The answer to your question is no, it doesn’t matter.

In my experience, there is no noticeable reciprocity failure when using the short flash duration of a studio electronic flash unit. I meter the same whether I am shooting outdoors in bright sun or using flash in the studio.

The only qualification I need to make, is that my Balcar flash equipment does not have a super short flash duration at full power (they’re around 1/500th of a second) and I have not used flash equipment with a super-short flash duration like the Broncolor units offer, which can be as short as 1/12,000 of a second at a reduced power output.

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[dagist]

Andy,

In reference to your question about mercury fumes being detectable in large enough concentrations, you are correct that almost all the literature you come across will state that the fumes are odorless, but none of those references are referring to mercury at elevated temperatures (I’ve read at least three dozen different references from the early 1800s through the present). At room temperature, I would certainly agree that no odor can be detected.

It is when mercury is heated that the concentrated vapors can sometimes be detected. Here’s a quote from an 1854 homeopathic journal, “Mercury, for instance, is inodorous. But this does not hinder its volatility, which is so great that it can be distilled at a moderately elevated temperature. We know from accidents which are occasioned every day among the workman who, by their business, are exposed to mercurial emanations, that, although almost without any smell, mercury is nevertheless one of the most frightful poisons with which we are acquainted.”

The reference “almost without any smell” above – concurs with my own experience, where I once made the mistake of forgetting to remove the protective rain-cap on the exhaust fan I installed on the outside of my van. The fan was running properly (so I thought because I could hear it) but no actual air was being drawn out of the portable fume hood because I had left the fan’s rain-cap on. When I returned to my van to process the on-location daguerreotype I had just exposed, I opened the van door and climbed inside. With my very first breath, I could detect a very-faint slightly-sweet odor that seemed to just tickle/irritate the back of my throat. I knew something was amiss and quickly got out of the van, whereby I discovered the rain-cap still in place, preventing the air from being exhasted/drawn out. It was the smell that clued me in, and I will of course never make that mistake again.

Here in the USA, our government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines for mercury vapor says “No information is available on the appearance or odor of mercury vapor.” Because heated mercury vapors can be so toxic to all living things, it is no wonder that there are no recent accounts of what it actually smells like when heated.

Cheers,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

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