[Festus]

Thanks Andy. The light does get brighter after a few minutes. Maybe I was just expecting more from it. I have a 220 heater in my shop, so even when it’s very cold outside I can get it up to 65-70. It happened to be 70ish when I was playing with the light.

As long as the light output stays consistant I’ll be able to zero in my exposure times. This should be fun!

I’ll keep tinkering with it.

Thanks again.

[Festus]

No such luck. Left it on for 15+ minutes and still dimsville. The cord I wired it into is off a grinder that died, so I’m pretty sure it’s up to the current flow. The “destructions” state that it requires 60hz to operate. Not sure if a typical wall socket would be that? The box states that the 100 watt bulb has the same brightness as a 650 watt incandescent, which to me would be BRIGHT!

Not sure how standardized the black/white wiring thing is. Maybe the current is flowing the wrong direction and am tempted to go black-white and black-white. But sure don’t want to fry a $75 light.

[Festus]

Oh geeez! I looked at the bottle closer. and I received Sodium SOLFATE from Photographers Formulary. Don’t know if that was my mistake or theirs, but no matter. Pobboravsky, I’m glad you caught this. No telling how long I would have been fixing with this wrong mixture and never noticed. Much Thanks! I’m off to order the right stuff.

[Festus]

Simone. That may be a test dag, but it’s still very good.

[Festus]

I did an experiment. Sensitized a plate to the first yellow. Then walked outside, but still in the shade. The yellow is very visible. Put in the fixer, and you can actually see the yellow (iodine) slowly disappear from the plate. Took about i5 minutes to look like a polished silver plate again. It was a fresh tray of fixer. Maybe I mixed it too weak? 15 grams of Sodium Sulfate and 15 grams of Sodium Thiosulfate in 1000 ml of water?

[Festus]

Good thought about the hypo. I usually leave my plates in the hypo for 15-20 minutes.

[Festus]

Okay. HERE’S the dag that didn’t take the gilding well…I hope?

 

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[Festus]

Here’s the dag that didn’t take the gilding well. The scan is lighter than the actual plate. The darker areas looked perfect. It was just her skin that lightened up and lost all detail.

[Festus]

I think as soon as I get one I’m proud of I might try the ebay route…just to test the waters.

Now if you will excuse me, I gotta go find out what a uranotype is!

[Festus]

My dags have been contact prints from digital positives. I think I need to reduce contrast a bit more. That should get my highlights a little darker without making everything else TOO dark. The highlights on this one were kinda borderline “too light”. The darker parts of the dag took the gilding very nicely, turning a nice antiquey brown. The highlights just lightened up and lost what little definition they had. They kinda have that solarized look that I’ve seen on some plates, but not as extreme. There were also these little…snowflakes…that appeared within the light areas. I’ll see about getting it posted so everyone can see.

[Festus]

I made a really nice dag this afternoon. Probably my best yet. I just gilded it and am not pleased with the results. The darker tones look really good, but the highlights look horrible. My models skin lost all definition. Just looks fake and pasty. Is the gilding step really needed? They look much better without it.

[Festus]

Hello. My name is Curtis Smith, aka Festus. Born in 1963 in San Jose, Ca. I got my first camera in the late 60’s, and have been taking photos ever since. But started striving to make it an art form only in the last 3 years. 35mm, then medium format, large format, then dabbling in alternative styles. The daguerreotype was the oldest and most difficult, so that’s the one I chose to concentrate on. I made my first plate only a month ago, but have improved greatly with each passing weekend. But still have a long way to go.

I hope not to offend anyone, but the genre I’ll be pursuing will be in the nude/fetish area. Tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

[Festus]

Because of the cost of the museum glass, that’s good news! But, out of the other three, what do you recommend?

[Festus]

Hey Jonathan, I’m sure if it works for you, it’ll work for me. But I did use a glass stirring rod to spread the solution. I’ve already had too many booboo’s by accidently touching the plate at various times during the process. But I’ll try the coffee filters.

Thanks.

[Festus]

Photolytic. An infrared thermometer, huh? I’ll get one this weekend. But after you bring it up to 60-70c, then what? From what I understand the plate will darken, then lighten back up…and your done. Rinse, dry, and seal.

[Festus]

Just mixed the gilding solution. Photographers Formulary only had a half gram in stock, so mixed it half strength….1/2 gram to 250ml water, and 2 grams Sodium Thio to 250ml water. Before mixing the two, the Gold water was a nice shape of, well, gold. After mixing the two solutions, it just looked like water. Poured into a brown bottle and set off to the side. From what I understand, it’s supposed to sit for a day. But being the person that I am, will probably try to gild the plate later today. Hopefully all this fog will burn off and I can occupy my time making another dag. I’ll run my the medical supply store to look for filter paper also.

[Festus]

Very good. I’ll make the effort to get the Whatman paper.

BTW, it’s overcast today, so no new dags. But I’ll still try to gild the one I made last weekend. Wish me luck.

[Festus]

Geeez Rob. I was hoping you would recommend coffee filters or something simple like that.

[Festus]

Mr Nelson. You said some key things that I think will help me a lot. Break in the buff, heat the plate, and not too much rouge. I’ll be giving it a whirl in the morning. Thankyou.

BTW, didn’t we all love Festus from Gunsmoke back in the 50’s and 60’s?

[Festus]

Good info! But what do you use to filter the solution with?

[Festus]

Wow! Great discussion. I’m just glad all my plates are new!

Thanks for the advise guys.

[Festus]

Thanks for the info Mercury Nelson. I’ll go a wee bit beyond the light repolish, then add a little more.

[Festus]

Thanks guys. I’ll just stick with a light repolish and hope for the best.

[Festus]

Thanks Rob. When I had my 10 4X5’s done I requested 1 mil. If it actually is, who know’s? Hopefully, I won’t be having to repolish them too many times before getting an acceptable image. But we know how THAT goes!

[Festus]

Thanks RonF! That’s very good news for us guys just starting out. Thanks again.

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