Getting Close
A year after I took the daguerreotype workshop at the George Eastman House, I am about a month away from creating double sensitized mercurial daguerreotypes suitable for portaiture. I have loaded some Iodine into one of the boxes and it seems to work very well.
It is sitting in my fume hood slowly warming to room temperature so I can try a few becquerel dags hopefully on Wednesday. The other fuming box should work just fine with the bromine charged silica gel so the boxes seem to be ready to go. The mercury is on its way and it will probably show up tomorrow. The bromine proved to be the hardest to get but I have secured 500ml of the vile red liquid- It arrives in about a month or so.
Today I made a new home for the buffing wheel so that is now checked off the list.
There are a few more things left to do like finishing the buffing paddles and setting up a small fume cupboard for the sensitizing boxes in the dark area. Thanks to Laurel Schultz I have the Iodine, a buffer and wheels, abrasives, velvet for the buffing paddles and some plates that simply need to be polished and sensitized. She really gave me the boost that I needed and I will be forever grateful for all her help.