[jgmotamedi]

Great work, who would have thought you can get an image from tincture of iodine?

Anyhow, I think the first thing to do is see if your problem is the fixer. Most of us use sodium thiosulfate and perhaps sodium sulfate. According to the MSDS, Kodak fixer has a lot more in it than just the thiosulfate, including alum and sodium acetate. Sodium thiosulfate is usually pretty cheap.

Did you read the piece on the CDags site about using silvered glass? It is a different approach to what you tried with silver leaf, but might be another method to consider.

[jgmotamedi]

I am still not sure why your hood is not working properly. Is the opening too big for the pull of the fan when you open the acrylic door? A professionally built fume-hood should have a motor with more than enough pull (>100 feet per minute) to keep the fumes inside. Did you replace the motor? Maybe you have too much pipe?

Seriously, it is time to stop and solve this before you do anything more. You are putting your health in danger. There is no reason you should ever smell bromine.

Buy a vaneometer. I dont know where to buy one in the EU.

I don’t know where to buy a smokebomb, as these are considered fireworks and aren’t usually shipped. You can make one out of sugar and potassium nitrate, look on the web for instructions, but be careful as these spit a lot of sparks.

[jgmotamedi]

I don’t understand how you could have a fume hood which is “working and exhausting everything out of the room” and still smell the fumes. Could you explain this? With a properly functioning fume hood nothing should escape.

Is the bromine not inside the hood?
Is the hood not sucking properly? Did you measure with an vaneometer?
Is the hood leaking fumes back into the room? Did you test with a smoke bomb?
Perhaps the fumes are being sucked back into the room because the hood doesn’t exhaust it far enough away? (another reason to test with a smoke bomb)

Also, if your room smells every time you put in a slide, I would say that your bromine is way too strong and your fuming box is not well made. Note also that PVC is not a good material for bromine. PTFE (Teflon) or glass is much better.

Finally, if your bromine fumes are escaping, perhaps mercury is too… Of course, you can’t smell mercury.

[jgmotamedi]

Why do you change the pH Mike? Ken told me about this, but I couldn’t figure out what advantage it holds.

[jgmotamedi]

I try to mix my gilding solution the evening before, and, as much as possible, mix no more than I will use.

[jgmotamedi]

I don’t have a definitive answer to your question, as I have not experimented much, but I have found that after sitting more than about three weeks mixed gilding solution starts to act funny and will leave stains on plates. I try to use my solution within a few days of mixing.

[jgmotamedi]

Sorry, that is a little too short notice for me to help. Best of luck.

[jgmotamedi]

When are you planning on traveling?

[jgmotamedi]

Thank you John and Greg!

[jgmotamedi]

I should also note that this is only an occasional occurrence for me, usually my plates are neutral or slightly warm. Last weekend’s plates were fine.

[jgmotamedi]

I can recommend a few places in the US to do the electroplating, but I think Bakody is correct, it makes much more sense for you to have them made in Turkey than have them shipped to you. Find a few jewelry-makers or silver-smiths near you and ask for recommendations for silver platers. Then go the the electroplaters and explain what you need. The base metal can be either copper or brass, and it may be that one of the platers can prep it for you. Start asking around, see what you find, and then come back and report.

[jgmotamedi]

I guess so, it isn’t very clear exactly what the chemical is, but I think chloroauric acid is pretty much the only gold chloride currently being used in photography. If you dilute it with distilled water to 500ml you should be set with the standard .2% solution.

[jgmotamedi]

It is very over exposed and probably fogged. Cut down time by 3 stops, don’t peek, and try again.

The scratches are probably from contact with the positive/negative. This is an inherent risk with making contact prints. See if you can move the plate and “negative” together in a way that they only contact each other once.

I don’t know what this means: “I know it’s not fuming etc because I have made a in camera Dag with a positive.” Fuming has effects regardless of how you expose.

[jgmotamedi]

I am going to back track a little bit. I have been obsessing recently about gilding, and rereading the old manuals it appears that chloroauric acid is what was used and recommended in the 19th century, not gold (III) chloride. Most of the manuals provide instructions on making your own gold chloride, and the instructions all suggest using aqua regia, which would produce chloroauric acid. Any disagreement? I know there are a few folks who are currently buffering their chloroauric acid with sodium carbonate or sodium metaborate to produce a more neutral solution, in line with the pH of gold (III) chloride.

As an aside, why do we age our gilding solution? None of the old manuals say anything about aging it, although one mentions that it should become “limpid.”

Such are the dangers of reading…

[jgmotamedi]

You want to use gold (III) chloride. However this isn’t readily available so most of us use Chloroauric acid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroauric_acid

I haven’t purchased in a while, but Artcraft has it for $45 a gram.

[jgmotamedi]

amilne wrote:

I would ship it inside a  a thick, glass bottle,  sealed in a metal container with much packing, all in a well-padded box.  It will not leak.  Shipping to United States only, please.

Why are there legal issues with Marco selling mercury and not you?

[jgmotamedi]

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for the link.

[jgmotamedi]

Thank you! I see I now have a few choices.

[jgmotamedi]

Anybody?

[jgmotamedi]

I don’t have the answers to your questions, but I can tell you that it isn’t the volume of the mercury that is important per-se but rather the surface area of the mercury. My pot has about two square inches of mercury exposed to the air, with total volume of mercury a little over an ounce. That is about a pound of mercury. Want to do that 5mg at a time?

[jgmotamedi]

Getting the mercury out of the bulbs is not going to be an easy task, and 5mg is a tiny amount. You might as well break apart thermometers or look for old mercury switches (my house came complete with two mercury-based thermostats, maybe an ounce of mercury in each). Better yet buy some, it is usually pretty cheap and a pound will last your lifetime.

[jgmotamedi]

Thanks for posting this!

[jgmotamedi]

I would guess you heated the plate too much. It should just be warm to the touch.
Room temp (18-21*C) is fine, humidity can be a problem so keep a silica gel pack in the corner of the iodine box and heat the plates (warm to the touch only) before you fume.
My suggestion is to start your experiments with Becquerel development with a plate that is mostly dark yellow with touch of magenta.

[jgmotamedi]

Hi Nate, hope you are doing well, and a belated thank you for the manuals.

In the past I have had good results making digital inter-negatives. This would be my suggestion, if you are set up for it. If not, many years ago I used Agfa N31P copy film with HC110 diluted 1:15, which came out of Jerry Spagnoli’s 2002 manual. I am sure the Agfa film is long gone, but perhaps someone knows of a replacement?

jason

[jgmotamedi]

Look into the boxes which the collodion cult members use, these are small boxes on a tripod which allow them to pull a black cloth over their heads and pour their plates. I have at times considered getting one of these dark boxes and converting it into a glove box, where you look through a red plexi window into the box, while your hands slip into gloves attached to the box, and do the work of moving the plate. With a setup like this you wouldn’t need a fan using iodine only.

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