[jgmotamedi]

That is one impressive machine… On the smaller side, Di Acro makes very nice 24″ guillotine shear. It still weighs a lot, but may be worth looking into. If I had space I would certainly be looking for a used one on eBay and Craigslist. Instead, I made friends with a local printmaking co-op and use their machine. Before that I used a small guillotine at a local art college.

[jgmotamedi]

There are at least two routes you can go for a buffing machine; You can purchase a buffing machine ready to go from a jeweler supply, or buy a bench grinder from a tool store and adapt it yourself. Buffing machines tend to be expensive. I once used a Baldor buffing machine and was very impressed with its power and quality of build, however it cost nearly $500. Nearly 4x the total price of my 6″ Dewalt bench grinder plus parts.

You can get a 6″ bench grinder at a tool store. I am sure that a chain like Home Depot or Lowes would have one, as would a locally-owned store. Of course they can also be ordered online. You will need .5 hp or more, and if I recall correctly about 3200rpm. My advice is to buy a name brand. No-name brands do not always live up to their advertized power. You can probably also find a decent used one locally, perhaps on Craigslist, or a used tool store. If you buy a bench grinder you will also need spindles, which can be purchased at a jeweler’s supply, such as Rio Grande. The idea is that you have to pull the grinding wheel and casings off the grinder, leaving it with only the shafts, then you attach spindles.

If you are doing this inside, consider purchasing or making a filter box. Buffing is very messy.

One other thing to consider is buffing speed. My local silversmith told me that I should be using an 1800rpm machine, not 3200rpm, for buffing. To get this low speed you pretty much have to buy a buffing machine, as bench grinders are not made at that speed. I am not sure what a slower speed buff would offer me, so perhaps someone else who knows more about silver can comment.

[jgmotamedi]

I had a machine shop (SK Grimes) make a few adapters for 3×4; you can see a picture of the product here: http://www.skgrimes.com/whats-new/2011-2/daguerreotype-adapter. These were not cheap, but work well.

I have also found that you can place a plate in a corner of the holder, so that two sides are held down, so long as you are careful and don’t drop or shake the holder. When I do so I make sure to use camera movements (shift and rise) to center the “sweet spot” of the lens on the plate.

Walter’s description using film pack holders is great, I have a 3×4 film pack adapter which I use with a 3×4 Graflex.

[jgmotamedi]

Yes, that is it.

[jgmotamedi]

Linhof made a double plate and film holder which works very well for Daguerreotyope plates with regular (International or Graflok) backs. These were made in 6.5x9cm, 9x12cm, 4×5″ and 13x18cm. These are no longer made but come up frequently on eBay. There are plate-ejector levers on the side of the holder which can help you differentiate the plate and film holder from Linhof’s regular film holders.

These plate holders have a spring-loaded base to ensure proper registration with the ground glass. One problem with modifying film holders, as described above, is that the registration will not be correct, since plates are significantly thicker than film. This will result in the plane of focus being closer that it appears on the ground glass.

[jgmotamedi]

Have you looked in a pharmacy? Often sterile distilled water is sold for various medical purposes. Not cheap, but better than ruining a gram of gold chloride.

I found a used lab-grade water still for $200 locally, and new 1 gallon distillers seem to run about the same. These won’t be sterile (not necessary for our purposes) or 99.99% pure, but what I get out of my machine seems to be good enough. Considering the price of gold chloride, I think it a good investment.

[jgmotamedi]

The matching pair Ty made for CAP are really nice. I highly recommend them. If I didn’t already have three sets of boxes I would have bought this pair myself.

[jgmotamedi]

Ty built a pair of boxes for the Center for Alternative Photography, where I have taught and will be offering a course on both Becquerel and Mercury development with another member of this forum (this is still not finalized, so no announcements yet) sometime next year.

The boxes are great, but my concern was that the workshop participants would crack the glass slide. They can be rather rough on equipment. Ty and I were thinking about alternatives. I use a 1/8″ PTFE slide between the wood top and glass insert in my boxes at home, but it seems that the price has risen sharply. One alternative to PTFE is acrylic, but my experience is that acrylic eventually breaks down under bromine. It takes a while to show the damage. More importantly it just doesn’t seem to seal as well as PTFE. I get leaks when not using PTFE slides between the acrylic top and the glass liner.

[jgmotamedi]

As photolytic wrote, you probably can’t mix saturated bromine water with silca gel or calcium hydroxide, but you can dilute it further (old manuals usually suggest 1:100) to make a bromine water quick.

[jgmotamedi]

With a small demonstration hood, like you have, the 4″ might be ok, but it probably won’t handle a larger hood.

More importantly, why does it look like your exhaust is going down once outside of the house? Or is the image upside down? It should go UP, right?

[jgmotamedi]

The 250 f3.5 is most likely a fine lens, but perhaps a bit short for 8×10. It may do if focused closely. It would probably be great on whole plate.

[jgmotamedi]

PVC green waste-grade PVC pipe comes in large sizes (6″ to 12″). Rubberized flexible hose (RFH) is meant for exhausting chemicals which comes in a variety of widths. Both are relatively expensive, and neither will resist long term direct contact to bromine, but both should last for many many years without worry for our purposes. Obviously aluminum is out, as is most metal duct work. I would think fiberglass should be OK, but I never found any for purchase.

[jgmotamedi]

I use a “auto-tune” temperature control unit, a wired thermocouple (thermometer), and a silicon heating pad all from Omega. It is a pretty simple system, but you do need a bit of knowledge to put one together. It wasn’t cheap, but it does keep my mercury within .1 degree Celsius.

Here is a distant picture of the set up:

[jgmotamedi]

Here is a Schneider catalog page from 1939 with f3.5 Xenar lenses:

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/schneider_2.html

And here one from Zeiss in 1935 for the Tessar:

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/zeiss_3.html

I can’t find one for you to buy, and nothing on ebay right now. These aren’t easy to find, and won’t be cheap, I would guess at least US$500. Good luck. Petzvals unfortunately have gotten very expensive, a bottom of the barrel Wollensak Vitax seem to be costing upwards of US$800.

If you can go to f4.5, a 360mm Xenar or Tessar will be easier to find, and much cheaper.

All of these lenses will require a large lensboard and sturdy camera.

good luck.

[jgmotamedi]

I regularly use 9600w/s on one head at f2.8 or thereabouts. If I move the head closer to the subject I can use a f3.5 lens easily enough.

For 8×10 and whole plate you have a limited selection of fast lenses. It is much easier for smaller plates. I would recommend looking for a 300mm f3.5 Tessar or Xenar. You can also look for a fast 16″ Petzval lens, some of these are f3.6 or faster. Do not be tempted by the 12″ f2.5 Kodak Aero-Ektar, they are in my experience useless for Daguerreotypy because of the yellow-brown stain caused by thorium glass.

[jgmotamedi]

I regularly use 9600w/s on one head at f2.8 or thereabouts. If I move the head closer to the subject I can use a f3.5 lens easily enough.

For 8×10 and whole plate you have a limited selection of fast lenses. It is much easier for smaller plates. I would recommend looking for a 300mm f3.5 Tessar or Xenar. You can also look for a fast 16″ Petzval lens, some of these are f3.6 or faster. Do not be tempted by the 12″ f2.5 Kodak Aero-Ektar, they are in my experience useless for Daguerreotypy because of the yellow-brown stain caused by thorium glass.

[jgmotamedi]

Although it is hard to tell, it looks like you are over-gilding, or at least on the first plate. There are too many variables to tell what is going on. Can I suggest that you make a few plates without gilding?

[jgmotamedi]

I would not use deerskin. I have had no end of trouble trying to polish with it.

[jgmotamedi]

Plater’s tape or masking lacquer.

See Photolytic’s post here http://www.cdags.org/dagforum/topic.php?id=140#post-2534 for a link to buy the plater’s tape in the US. It also gets used in circuit board manufacture, so do a web-search for circuitboard plating tape or some such. I have seen masking lacquer for sale at jewelry or electroplating supply houses. For example, in the US these are Caswell, RioGrande, as well as my local which carries Grobet products.

[jgmotamedi]

Wow, this is all incredibly helpful. Thank you Mike and John! I am just starting to take plating seriously (previously I just ‘left it to the experts’), and this is all very useful. I guess I have lots of reading to do…

[jgmotamedi]

Thanks for the kind words about my “credentials.” I agree with you that electroplated silver should be as durable as clad silver, however in my experience it is the rare electroplater who actually puts on 25 microns (1 mil) of silver. My current electroplater, who does an otherwise excellent job, told me that he puts on about .75 mil. It is relatively easy to go through this with Nushine. I know that other electroplaters put on significantly more silver.

[jgmotamedi]

Don’t use Nushine with electroplated silver, it will cut through the thin layer of silver exposing your base metal. Nushine does work very well to prepare copper or brass for electroplating.

[jgmotamedi]

Excellent, thank you Mike.

[jgmotamedi]

Quote:

“Place velvet pad on top of plate cut larger than the random orbital foam applicator pad or hand-finishing block.”

Sorry, this confuses me. Are you constructing a pad covered in velvet? And is this pad what is larger than the plate?

[jgmotamedi]

I don’t think either will be bright enough to develop the plates in a reasonable amount of time. Still, it might be an interesting experiment to see what happens if you try the Thomas light.

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