[Pollywog]

Hi csant,

In response to your inquiry, the fume box’s opening is at 15cm x 14 cm. It is meant to take in a DIY template (not provided).

The description of the box:

-The box is secured firmly for iodine process, which works fine and should work quite efficiently.

-The internal Part dimension is 23.5 cm (L) x 14 cm (H) x 17.5 cm (W), it should be able to take in a suitable 2.3 litre Lock & Lock air tight tupperware for iodine storage or Pyrex dish that is

– It’s made with white Meranti cabinet wood, clear coated. It’s solid & quite thick.

-The slide is made of acrylic, could be replaced with glass piece easily and measured similarly with local glass stores. Plus, it’s suitable for weight purposes & to deliver without anything breaking.

However, there’s a few weaknesses I should address honestly:

– There’s no brass latch provided to secure this box, should be easy to get those in any hardware stores locally.

– The screws needed to be replaced with brass, as this was intended to be a mock-up prototype. However, the hinges are made of brass.

-The hole is limited from going bigger plates, it’s suitable for 4×5 & smaller

As this is only a mock-up and it had a few weakness in it’s design, I am willing to part with it for £120 + FedEx posting: (roughly £25-30). This barely covers the cost of making it plus woodshop time.

However, if you could hold on till somewhen in September-October this year, I will be able to come-up with finished pieces, which I had discussed the design with Christopher Brenton West in overcoming the flaws and further internal rectification, plus the larger opening for templates to fit modern film plates (4×5,5×7 & 8×10) & traditional film plates (Full Plate, Half-Plate, & Quarter Plate).

It is estimated that those boxes would be around £180/- each. The first batch should be around a dozen or so by then, I’ll try to make them consistently as far as I could.

Since the preparation in making dags takes time and certainly on the equipments, even for myself included, I would like to recommend to hold on from getting this prototype box until I manage to finish the proper fume box in September. However, if you’re still interested, I could still sell it to you.

As far as I know; the fuming box doesn’t come by easily, plus it’s quite competitive when announced, limited by the regional delivery restrictions by the sellers, and certainly not cheap. Please do correct me if there’s one available in Europe that I had missed asking.

I had asked for many months to several practising daguerreotypists on acquiring these type of boxes since February, with many had kept silent or almost no lead, I suppose it’s mostly DIY thing, it was a disadvantage for those without proper garage with tools, (I live in a flat apartment, as most Londoners) that had lead me to outsource to a woodshop abroad with this project to keep my cost of making low.

However, as I mentioned, I will move out to find a compatible place to start working on my dags and certainly the equipments in the next few months, as I will need more space to do this. The dag-bug really got my heart, how could one deny it’s beauty…

I would love to see this practice spread out again like how it was in the past, and certainly it should start from the equipments’ accessibility, or at least made available.

-Pollywog

[Pollywog]

I do have one prototype which is a reference for me to produce more finished piece in the future. I have to thank CBW (drdag) for his guidance for the improvements and advises for me experiencing dag world.

 

Hopefully, when all are done, they’ll be ready and be able to accept modern plate size films (4×5, 5×7, & 8×10) and old film plate size (Full plate, half plate, & quarter plate).

 

If there’s enough interest from the CDags community, I would be able to supply a decent number of fume boxes, hopefully by this winter. I do hope in the future I could build more and being encouraged enough to do more of a proper “Dag Kit”.

 

What I have now is still unused fume box and still need some modifications. I could sell this to you if you’re in the UK if still interested, currently I am staying in London, UK, for a few months.

 

Here’s some images of the current prototype box I have.

 

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[Pollywog]

Hi to all,

I had started to invest into dag after selling off most of my modern digital gears. Like most, I began to feel the frustrations of this craft becoming more and more “off-hand” and I do missed out on the good old day of hearing running water in the darkroom & the stink of fixer.

I had taken my studies with Christopher Brenton West and made my first dag on a personal one-to-one workshop and I must say, it paid off to feel the excitement again much like my student heydays in the darkroom. He is an excellent guru in teaching the ways of the dag and very practical. The first image made with him was quite something to experience.as it had refreshed my energy to pursue this craft.

I am now travelling abroad crafting my first sensitising / fume box, I think it was built quite ok based on many looks from this website resources, with some small modifications.

Looking into the next step, which I might be playing my own copper/brass plates, I had purchased a humble amount of pure silver and still looking around the proper tools to start off to make some initial to make my own plate, as electroplating silver in the UK are costly and if I were to follow that route, it would certainly limit my image-making to less than half a dozen a year.

I hope with the help of the current members, I could make my own contribution in later practice.

Thank you for opening this board to all interested parties and hope to stay active for as long as I could.

Kind regards,

Pollywog

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