[newone2010]

Hi all,

 

I received one plate from my plater yesterday,and made a dag in yesterday evening. I let the plater to polish the brass,but it looked to be worse than doing it myself.It was a hard to be polished,but it works and it was better than all the plates which I made in China before.I think this plater can make the silvered plates better,if he have a look at American plates.I tried to explain the “decorative” silver bath which Rob mentioned to him,and he said he could try after I show the plates which Rob send to me.It’s another good news for me.

 

The toy bear is almost black,I found it was hard to be photoed.I polished the plates under a 80w filament lamp.It was hard to see the dusts and scratches,and I was hurry to go out for meeting my friend,so it is not a good job which I can do but I didn’t.By the way,I had no distilled water left,so I used a kind of “purified water” which was sold in supermarket.

 

Li

 

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[newone2010]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for all your help.

I think Fedex is OK .Fedex will send the package to other express company in China and let me get it.I will check it!About the customs,maybe you need to add a picture let them know what are in the package,if not ,maybe they will open it and left scratches on the plates.

Thank you all again.

Li

[newone2010]

I use 4X5(almost 4X5,94mmx122mm) since I just have a 4X5 camera.

[newone2010]

Thank you for all your help.

I saw my problems has been on the home page.Another kind gentleman Mr.Jeff Green want to help me for get some silvered plates.I am so happy.

[newone2010]

Hi Everyone,

I come back to this thread.

I have been struggling with bad quality of the silvered plates.I was failed.I am thinking about the electroplating again.All the platers I found told me that,if I want to get high quality silvered plates,I must electroplate a layer of Nickel first.I have done this before,but have some problems.Please check the info from the replies above.Small spots came out during sensitive or fixing,even during exposure.My friend who was a chemistry teacher in high school said it may caused by the primary cells(galvanic cells;primary battery,I don’t know what’s the correct word in English).The primary cells were cause by the different metal silver , nickel,and the moisture in the air.According my poor experience of the nickel plates,the spots were not in each plates,some just a few,some more.

Is the silver layer too shin?If the plates have enough thick layer of silver above nickel,can I solve the problem? I think maybe the thicker silver would prevent the further chemical reaction of primary cells.

Is there someones’ plates have nickel layer too?That’s I want to know,thank you!

best,

Li

[newone2010]

I discussed with the guy this afternoon.He said there is another way to put pure silver onto cooper.The method was very very old.Chinese workers used this method 1500 years ago.

Mixed the silver(or gold) and mercury,then put the mixture onto the cooper.The mercury escape from the mixture and the silver(or gold)left after heating. Repeat it 4 times,and it will left about 36 microns silver on the surface.

The ancient Buddhism sculptures were made by this method.

How about modern Daguerreotypists do with the clad plates?Is it the same method?Can someone let me know some information about it?

Maybe prepare silvered copper is not a problem for you,but it really stuck me from further attempt.

Thank you all

[newone2010]

Hi Daniel,

How about the neck?If we make a long time exposure,the model’s neck will be move.I didn’t see any thing can keep the neck to be motionless from your picture.

Li

[newone2010]

Hi Irv,

Thank you.I just made two new platform 2mm lager than the plates 1 hours ago.I will cut it smaller or make a new one.I get your message just a little later.

best,

Li

[newone2010]

Hi Irv,

Is the platform little larger than the plates?

Thank you,

Li

[newone2010]

I have 2 plates left from my first plater,and take a shoot yesterday night.

I have the same problems:

bad polishing,bad plating…

no-gilding

 

One point: I use bromine water this time,not bromine.It looks has the same result as bromine.Bromine water is much more safer.

 

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[newone2010]

9600ws?What a powerful flash!

How much each this kind of light cost?

I thought some of you use six 1600ws flash lights together before.Most powerful flash I saw is just 2400ws,and it is really expensive.

[newone2010]

Hi,

Glad to see new practitioner as me.Making dags is really hard work.I tried hard to get good results but failed,but I will keep trying.

Hope to see your results soon.

best,

Li

[newone2010]

Hi John,

I saw that there were 2 flash lights with soft boxes in the mirror of the plate.

Do you use them for making dag portrait?What is the biggest aperture of your lens? How powerful are the flash lights?

I use flash lights too.Because I am doing experiment,I just have two lenses,one is F 5.6,another is F 8,and I have two flash lights only 800W. Bigger aperture lenses are very very expensive and difficult to be found in China.

best,

Li

[newone2010]

Hi John,

Thank you so much for showing me the picture.I speak English not well,so I want to ask more questions:

Does good silver plating must to be added brightener to get enough bright and mirror face? Does the brightener change the percentage composition of silver?

best,

Li

[newone2010]

Hi Irv,

Thank you for your advices.I get headache.The plater will not help me now.I spent 4 days for waiting him around his little factory.I called him many times,he just answered me power cut of his factory.

I will find another electro plater and it will cost lots of time.

The copper polishing were not good before,but I make them more better now.I have polished over 15 plates this time.

I know before electroplating,the plates must do not have polishing wax and oil left.The plater who help me before can not clean them.After clean,he left stains on the plates and the color of brass or cooper changed and it will be seen after silver plating partly .Although I do not know what kind of cleaning agent and method he used,I can say it must be wrong.

I looked over this forum.I found most of the members asked for 1 mil silver on each plate and each plate can be repolished several times.The plater tell me he made the silver really thick,around 4-7 mil.unfortunately I found the plates I got can be polished just one time,and copper came out some times.I thought he was a not honest man.In china,unscrupulous merchant is everywhere.Most Chinese people become more and more faithless under the control of C-party.Sigh…

Hope I can find a good plater tomorrow.

all the best,

Li Junyi

[newone2010]

Thank you so much,Andy

[newone2010]

exposure is just fine

bad plate condition

bad polishing

bad silver electroplating

I will find a way to solve all these problems

[newone2010]

Hi Andy and everyone,

I came out from the darkroom just 1 minutes ago.I didn’t wear gloves and polished the plate well,but the problem was still there!

I thought about the pinholes you mentioned again.

---

back in few minutes

---

I had a phone call with the guy who make electroplate for me few minutes gao. He told me before electroplating the silver,he electroplated a thin layer of nickel (Ni).He said after that,I can get a shinny ,bright,almost mirror surface plate. When I get the plates( 15 plates with Ni), I did found that they looked better than the plates which were electroplated before.I was so glad and call him for thanks and asked him how he let these plates looked so great.He laughed and told me he had a little secret.

I discussed with him,and he said NiI2 was black.I looked over the plate.Each white spot has a very tiny black point in the middle and a circle of white or shinny ring around.Is it caused by NiI2 or Ni-Br? When I took the plates out of Br or I,I found the spots formed.I put the plates in camera , exposured, took them back to darkroom,I found more spots formed.I thought it would become more and more by time passing.

This guy said it was not caused by Ni, the silver layer was on the whole plate above Ni and had no pinholes.He refused to confirm he made mistakes.

I think it maybe caused by something else,but Ni is the first suspect,but I am still confused why the first few plates had much less spots.

If the Ni really works well,and my problem are caused by something else,all of you can try it;If the Ni really works well,but just my silver electroplating has pinholes but you can make it without pinholes,you can try it too.It really let the plates looks well and just need less than 3 minutes to be hand polished.I think it will be helpful specially for the large size dags which need to be hard polished.

Anyway,I can get some plates without Ni about 5 days later.We can see the results at that time.

What do you think about it?Look forward to hear your opinions.

best,

Li Junyi

PS: My English is not good,hope all of you can understand what I said.If any words make you unpleasant

,please do not mind.

[newone2010]

They are not pinholes in the silver.The spots were just on the surface. Mr.Jon Lewis said perhaps the spots are due to sulfide contamination of the silver.I thought it maybe caused by my gloves.My wife bought gloves for me.Today,she just told me these gloves had some kind of powder on.(very tiny,can’t be seen if not carefully).I thought this might be the key.

I just have 2 plates left now,and I will try one this afternoon.Hope I have good luck.

Thank you all so much!I know I will have more questions and back for help.

[newone2010]

I tried another,but failed too. This time.the spots came out just after Br!!!!!What a serious problems!!!!!

Who can help me?

[newone2010]

Thanks, Key Msater.

My mercury pot just has one slide,which was made from stainless steel(is it bad?).When I pull it out and push it back,the post shake,just a little bit.Before I make a new mercury pot whith double slide,I will try without a slide,just put the dag on the Hg vapor when the temperature raise up to 70 degree Celsius.I know it is really dangerous. 😡

best,

Li Junyi

[newone2010]

Hi everyone,

I come back with new problems.Please check the 3 images bellow.(it was taken under filament lamp(about 3200K)

 

I made a dag today afternoon. When I took it out of mercury pot,I found there were some white spots on the plate.I fixed the plate,and wiped the image.I want to know whether these spots can be wipe put as the images on plates,but I was failed.They were still there.I watch these spots carefully,I found there was a very tiny black spot in the middle of each white spot,just like was pricked by a syringe needle.

 

What are the white spots?

 

best,

 

Li Junyi

 

 

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[newone2010]

OH,I see. I didn’t use PS to remove the dust and scratches of my cheap glass before.I just want to show how my dags looks like,but I found the images after scanning are really much more bad than the dags really were.

I don’t have a scaner.I just sent them to a small shop of printing photos in the town.They has a Epson scaner but I didn’t know which size it was.They used normal scan software and get bad results.

I will PS the images,and let them close to how the dags look like.See you soon.

[newone2010]

How do you digitizing dags? Scan or take photos? You dags looks so nice at screen.Thanks

[newone2010]

this is the same question I want to know

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