The Daguerreotype: Contemporary work by Jonathan Danforth

I’ve said time and time again that one of the hardest things about making Daguerreotypes is the creation or otherwise location of critical tools, supplies, and equipment to deliver a quality product. Though I have alternative, modern ideas for casing Daguerreotypes using exotic materials and techniques, the brass mat is a beautiful way to help protect and compliment your finished image when it is in a case or frame.

Regardless of the style or material, the mat and cover glass are necessary to prevent damage to the delicate surface of the daguerreotype just like with the framing of traditional photographs. While I have used paper, foamcore, rag, and brass to make mats for my images, I will be focusing on the latter in this post.

The first step in creating brass mats is to design them.  Because I’m a child of the digital age, I chose to design my mats using CAD software provided free (conveniently enough) from emachineshop.com. The tutorials on the website from eMachineShop are easy to follow and I suggest you build their example widgets to get the hang of the software.  My mat designs are here. You may use them however you wish.

eMachineShop.com is a fascinating service.  Free software is provided to you to draw up any object you can imagine.  Once drawn you can select from a big list of exciting machinery that will convert your computer drawing into a real-life object.  Such magic comes at a price, however.

As of writing (6/6/2008) the price for an order of 25 units of my 9-up design (2&1 brass, .024″ thick) is $2830.94 when cut using Wire EDM.  Now, keep in mind that this gets you 25 each of 4 shapes in 3 sizes for a total of 100 mats at an average price of $9.43 per mat!  This is, regardless, a spicy meatball.  Quantity is key here: the same design in an order of 100 units brings the price down to $7.75 each.

Given that my quantity demands are low and my lust for tools and machinery is (very) high, I splurged.  For $1500 and a 4-hour drive I purchased a CNC routing machine on eBay that lets me cut out mats one at a time in any shape I can dream up.  I can make four 4×5″ mats from a $15 12×12″ sheet of brass (see this post) the cost savings add up quickly.

Once manufactured you’ll need to refine the mats.  I use a Dremel tool to rough out the inner bevel and then I lap it with 60 & 80 grit sandpapers.  The mats get thrown into the vibratory finisher filled with sand and cook for a while getting de-burred and, well, mat.  I polish the bevel again to make it really shiny and then comes the fun part: nail the thing with your blowtorch until it turns purple and then douse it in water!

The blowtorch step makes the brass turn a beautiful aureate color.  If you then use a palm sander and a heavy-grit paper such as 60 on the face you’ll have a nice contrast of gold coloration.  The face will be very yellow while the bevel will be a pretty bronze/gold color.

-J

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