Have been slowly moving forward with my experiment to create stainless steel based plates. Today I plan to finalize the cutting templates so I can cut up the 1′x2′ piece I had plated. The plan is to use 1/16″ acrylic laser-cut templates to guide the cutting on the 40″ hydraulic shear at TechShop. The real challenge is cutting accurately, with the goal being an error of less than 1/32″. I am going to send a few of the sixth plates to friends for testing. The real challenge will be cutting the 35 mm microplates I want as the cutting takes place entirely out of view under the blade guard.

Not much to say about today that isn’t already in the Lab Notes. I didn’t quite make my eight hour committment. Oh well, “stuff” happens. In addition it was very overcast today, so I’m not sure how well a Becquerel daguerreotype would have developed. Nevertheless progess was made – and never mind perfection.

Thanks to the meltdown of the California state budget this last year, Governor Schwartzenegger has given all California State University workers (including me) a gift of 24 days off without pay in the next eleven months. Rather than moping around about the loss of income, I have decided to devote each of my “extra” days off to attaining my ongoing goal of becoming a daguerreotypist.

Any of you who have followed my writing know that I have been conducting a rather slow motion quest – due mostly to lack of adequate free time. Excruciatingly slow. This temporary change in my schedule should give me the boost I need to at least make it to my first daguerreotype and hopefully beyond.

Today was the first day off, and I devoted it entirely to moving forward with my art. As part of my re-energized commitment, I have also decided to post my lab notes on these days as well. You can find those at the link below.

Lab Notes

I’m heading over to CDags.org now to see if the experienced artists there will be willing to advise me on a problem I ran into today when I practiced fuming a plate for the second time.

Happy daguerreotyping!

I spent a fair amount of quality time this weekend in castle daguerre. Several hours were devoted to experimenting more with polishing plates. Since I was dissatisfied with my copper polish in the last go round, this time I worked on a sixth plate that I have that was donated to me by a daguerreian friend. It is already coated with silver and has been used a number of times, so it was a perfect practice subject. I wanted to see in what way working with the silver is different than the copper. Read more »

After some friendly goading from my closest dagurreian friends, I went out to the castle tonight to get some more hands-on practice with polishing. I’m sticking to bare copper plates still, since I don’t feel ready to tackle silver yet. True to my friend’s advice, I began to learn a few things that I didn’t read about in books – and confirmed a few that I had.

Fact 1 – Flat metal plates are not actually flat. Read more »