[ThePhotoChemist]

Hey jphil,

I might be a little late to help at this point, but I would agree – it’s probably a combination of both. My earliest dags (granted, they were silvered glass and not regular plates) were poorly polished, and generally very hazy. This resulted in negative-only results, even when they were developed properly.

I’m sure underdevelopment didn’t help all that much here, though. Try not to worry about heat — mitigate it when you can, but honestly I’ve left mine sit out on some pretty hot summer days and haven’t really seen noticeable amounts of fog. Look at it this way – underdeveloped plates are almost entirely worthless as images, so you may as well commit to the full development!

You pulling it early reminded me of my first few – I did that too! I was just too excited and couldn’t wait any longer. It always looks so much more dense when under rubylith than what it really is. If you’re really worried about development times, you can take it inside and develop with a floodlight & fan for a more controlled setup while you learn the process a bit. It might be worth tracking down some amberlith if you can, it cuts the development time about in half vs rubylith.

[ThePhotoChemist]

Hey there higherres,

I’ve been playing with an ultra low-cost method of producing Bdags recently. I’m saving up for a workshop before I start doing the process legitimately, as I don’t want to ruin a whole bunch of costly plates with poor polishing practices.

1. Using glass plates. One can silver their own (per Andy Stockton’s document here , it’s quite well written) or harvest mirrors (like Máté Bakody) that use silver as a reflective coating.

I’ve been preferring removing the backing off of mirrors, though some areas I wasn’t able to remove the backing entirely and this causes imperfections on the final product. The silver layer is thicker and is less likely to flake off during fixing, and one can repolish the plate once before the silver is too thin. The 3’x4′ mirror I picked up from an antique store cost $12, plus $30 for the citri-strip paint stripper comes out to about $0.50/ 4×5 plate. Though this for ideal conditions, there are spots on my mirror that I can’t remove.

I use two coatings of 4mL each solution from the Angel Gilding kit, which equates to about $3-$4 per plate depending on your cost of glass.

2. For kicks I tried sensitizing plates with 10% povidone iodine tincture. Sensitization times are extremely long even when the plate is mere mm from the surface of the liquid. 35m – 1h30m to sensitize to first cycle magenta, depending on the temperature. The fumes are generated so slowly that this somewhat negates the need for a fume hood (I myself haven’t caught so much as a single whiff of iodine since I’ve started). Still, make sure your ventilation is decent. The solution seems to deplete after a few weeks. $8 for a bottle.

3. Polishing. For kit mirrored plates you can get away with some cotton balls and rouge. For the harvested mirror plates I use a polishing board I made from a scrap board, foam, and a length of ultrasuede. Cost about $30. I hand polish right now, my random orbital sander doesn’t have a speed dial and likes to vibrate my plates right off.

Factor in the cost of a 500w halogen spotlight, some rubylith and your fixing solution and you’ve got yourself a pretty dang cheap becquerel daguerreotype setup. Add $50 if you’re going to cold gild them (I have yet to do this). The stability of glass daguerreotypes isn’t well known, so YMMV.

Pictured: The tray I sensitize my plates with, two bridge plates (made from the harvested mirror), and a starfish (kit mirrored plate).

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[ThePhotoChemist]

No way!

It’s one of my 2016 New Year’s resolutions: make my first daguerreotype. I just bought my first house, so after the move I can finally put in a nice dark room with proper ventilation, fume hood, etc. I’m very excited!

[Author]

Posts