Daguerreotype Plate Polishing and Preparation
I spent yesterday polishing some engraver’s copper that I bought from Rembrandt Graphics. 
For the first time, I’m going to be making my own plates instead of buying pre-made plates from Theiss Plating. Theiss has been very friendly but I’ve discovered that I can save about $10-12 per plate if I take the copper plates to a local silver plater instead. Surtronics, the plater, seems very capable and, more importantly, they didn’t laugh me out of the door when I asked them to make me some Daguerreotype plates!
The raw copper plates that I bought from Rembrandt came in pre-polished which is to say that they were rather mirror like but still had fine scratches throughout. Through a considerable amount of trial and error, I found that the best results were to be had by my simply giving the pre-polished plates about 25 strokes on my hand buffer which was charged with black Iron Oxide powder.
I read today on a blog an account of Mike Robinson, known Daguerreotypist, uses “pumice powder and olive oil” to polish his silver which is a new technique to me. Amateur telescope makers, by the way, use a similar wet technique to polish. Maybe there’s something to this madness! Mike, however, is a man who likes to stick to the 19th century methods where possible. I, however, tend to eschew such things.
As soon as I get a test plate back from Surtronics, I’ll know if I’ve saved myself a bunch of time or caused a major headache.
-Jonathan
