phuphuphnik
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phuphuphnikParticipant
Ray over at Star camera co makes them. I can vouch for his work, too. Sadly, they only have f11 lenses, and are really only suited for wet plate according to Ray. BUT I’m sire if you had matched lenses he’d work with you…
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantYep! These are terrific for practice. You can polish these hundreds of times. I take a brass plate, about 2.5″ square. skuff it up with scotchbrite. put it onto a aluminum plate on the stove. keep tapping solder on the plate until it melts. wait a second so it wets the brass. put the silver onto the brass and carefully let solder wick under the silver. If it gets on top, it won’t sensitize on that spot. Then turn off the stove and carefullt so as not to move the silver press a bit of wood over the whole thing. this flattens it out. if you used too much solder it will ooze out and wreck the edges of the silver image wise. Let it cool, and polish.
phuphuphnikParticipantYou are starting out just like I did. pretty much exactly, in fact.
Use the same 500W light to expose the plate. I have my light about 15 inches above the plate. What I did was sensitize for 30 seconds and look at the colour in dim light, then another 30 seconds and so on. Once you know the difference between what the first cycle and second cycle looks like you’ll be able to tell the difference. This takes a lot of practice as it can be really subtle.
The link below is my progress for my first dag. I’ll keep the album public for a couple days.
The image titles explain what is going on. These were contact printed from a positive in the manner I just described.
http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g209/phuphuphnik/dags/
Once you have the colour you like, put the plate under a positive (well, for starters a negative is fine)with a piece of glass over it. I’d start with a 30 second exposure. Then remove the negative, and put the rubylith over it taped in place. I seem to recall that 2 layers of rubylith…anyhoo… Turn the light back on and have a fan on the plate. Heat kills dag plates. Give it a good hour (longer, but we all like fast results) then clear in the hypo. Use distilled water.
You are quite close. Remember, an over exposed plate, contact printed with a positive will be negative. This doesn’t mean you’ll get good results trying to make a positive out of a negative, though. Worry about gilding later…
edit: oh yeah, Beq development can take *hours* like, ‘go take a nap’ hours.
phuphuphnikParticipantI would try a Chemistry professor, or secondary school teacher. You won’t need a lot of the chemicals for just a demonstration. When you talk to them, be sure to have a couple books or print outs of what exactly you want to do. This will help them understand. A letter from the gallery would provide proof that you are not up to mischief. Also have an idea of how much of each chemical you will need. For example, I use about .75mL of bromine to 500mL water, and about a spoonful of iodine. You won’t need a lot of mercury, it will depend on how big the fume box is. I use 10ml of 1% gold chloride in a hypo/water mix.
Cheers,
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantI have the top of the light at a slight angle. After the clearing of the plate, I give it a swish in distilled water, and put it while still quite wet onto the light. As the water heats up I put the AgCl along the uphill edge of the plate with an eyedropper. I wait until the plate is starting to dry, then give it another swish in the water, then dry.
The solution doesn’t do much more than hiss a bit and evaporate if it hits the housing. Tell you what, in the next couple days I’ll post a video of the process.
phuphuphnikParticipantWhen Developing via Beq, I set the plate on top of the halogen light. (light beam going down, so the plate is set on the back of the lamp) It is plenty hot to successfully guild the plate.
phuphuphnikParticipantPobboravsky: I love your rye humour. Anyone try cold cathode lights? I’ll ‘borrow’ a superbright array from work and take a look.
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantFantastic!
Cheers,
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantActually, I was looking to avoid the additional ether. If I used cyanide, then silver plating my dag plates would be better as well. I am waiting to be authorized to post on the forum you suggested, in the mean time I know many here have done wet plate as well, so I asked. Thanks for the chem instruction, I was having difficulty following why it took so long to clear. I also can’t find cadmium iodide. The formulary has the bromide.
cheers,
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantI work a 5 week rotating shift, and work 2 weekends out of 5. Therein lies the rub. Summer would be better. ack! I hate it when life gets in the way of things I want to do.
phuphuphnikParticipantI might be, as you’re just 6 hours across the prairie from me. It would depend on cost and timing. Mostly timing.
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantThat seems pretty easy, just find what colour amberlith really is. There must be a roscoe number for a similar theatre gel. I’ll poke around and see if I still have a swatch book. that’ll have it.
phuphuphnikParticipantHere it is! I did a shellac French finish. Took the first image with it today. It is on another post.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.phuphuphnikParticipantLEDs can get hot, and even burn themselves out. The high watt ones are what you have to worry about. The Luxeon and the like need to be mounted on heat sinks. A sheet of copper would work, if your average Daguerreotypest can find one of those…
LEDs run cooler in general, but keep in mind a 5 watt LED still is taking 5 watts of power, what isn’t going into light is heat. My little soldering iron is only 12 watts. It won’t get as hot as the 500W halogen I use now for Beq.
The LEDs I linked to don’t get that hot.
phuphuphnikParticipantWe use these at work, buggeringly bright! Also note the spec sheets.
Cheers!
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantIf you want to build your own board, it would be considerably less than the 12″ traffic light.
Most places that sell LEDs have specs as to light output. Try Ledshoppe, and superbrightled.com
The other thing to worry about is any pattern the die may leave. By this I mean the lens on the LED might focus the shape of the emitter. To get by this you can scuff the lens to make it diffuse. Also use more than one! This is a pretty good idea, and could lead to a very portable Beq darkroom. I have some red tail light leds left over, I’ll give it a whirl after my other experiments.
phuphuphnikParticipantThat is a shame, there are several on there now. ‘Brass Lens’ got me 5 or 6 hits.
Chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantI was planning on using the Hg/Cl filters on a negative pressure box. Air flows into the box, and out the Mercury vapour filter. This way A) I don’t breathe it in, and B) It doesn’t get into the environment. I was looking at building a Sulfur mesh box to trap anything that got past the filter.
cheers,
chriso
phuphuphnikParticipantUp to half plate. I had him make a 4×5, and a couple other holders.
phuphuphnikParticipantheh,
the first stuff I had I made. Yeah, 80% nitric acid and Uranium metal. The stuff I use now I traded for. If someone is really interested I can send some treated paper.
phuphuphnikParticipantAh, sorry,
I use Uranium Nitrate instead of Silver Nitrate for making printing out paper. Yellows, reds and browns. Pretty good contrast on the right papers. About as Toxic as Dags, with the added plus of radioactivity. If I sell enough I can afford the silver plating setup I want and get back to dags!
phuphuphnikParticipantYeah, I ALMOST am at that point. For a little 2×2 contact print I get $50-$100 US. That covers the materials and some of the time. I use local art shows, Fortunately my work has one each year. I have thought about Ebay, just please make sure you emphasize that it is a contemporary work. The nice thing about using a gallery is that even if a prospect doesn’t buy the one on display, they know you are out there. I ran into this this past weekend and got a comission. (although it was for a Uranotype) If you find something that works let the rest of us know yeah?
phuphuphnikParticipantAm I the only one who doesn’t use quicks? While I don’t enjoy the minute or more exposures, I feel using a quick adds a complexity to the operation that I’m not ready for yet.
phuphuphnikParticipantDoh! And to think I knew that already. Yeah I bet that is the issue. Man am I ever glad I found this list. Getting too close to the problem makes you overlook the simple things. I’ll stop at Fred’s Thrifty Acres (heh that’ll root out any Michiganders) and get glass. Thanks!
chriso
man I gotta cut the coffee…
phuphuphnikParticipantAh! To respond to photolytic:
The page is in the process of being updated. I’m afraid I’m not too good at making interesting web pages, so a friend is revamping it…I digress. For the small 2×2 images I solder silver to brass. I’m working on doing 4×5 now as well, and it is on those that I use the acid. Sorry for the confusion. I still use the smaller ones, as the prep is a lot faster. They fit right into my Rollei. They are really good for beginners I feel because you can polish them so often without wearing through the silver. Plus they will fit into a garage sale 620 camera, making it even easier for the beginner with no equipment.
Cheers!
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