The Daguerreotype: Contemporary work by Jonathan Danforth

I wanted to show off the beautiful sensitizing boxes for sale by Stephen Day.  These blow mine out of the water!

Great job, Stephen!

There’s a Flickr group for contemporary daguerreotypes now.

I can’t figure out how to get MINE in there but hey… I keep getting the message that the image is either already inside the group, in too many groups, or is restricted. As far as I know my images aren’t in ANY groups but I’m not even sure how to see if that’s the case.

Anyway… check it out.

Jonathan

I hereby declare 2008 the “Year of the Daguerreotype.” I have been simply amazed at the increase in traffic to my site, communications with new daguerreotypists and other artists, communications with new collectors, and interest in daguerreotypes in general in the past six months.

Yesterday I announced the opening of an internet forum all about daguerreotypes and today I receive this e-mail from my dear friend Alan:

Dear Fellow Daguerreians

In an effort to promote a forum for discussions on contemporary Daguerreotypy, I have set up a website at:
http://www.contemporarydaguerreotypes.info/

It has a forums section and in the main website a galleries section where I hope to have images of interest. If you would like your own gallery webpage with the main site, showing your images and contact information, please email me the material. I hope to make an egalitarian community website that will be of interest to you. Please feel free to send me requests as to what you would like to see on the website.

Best regards,
Alan Bekhuis
CasedImage.com

How splendid!

Jonathan

Jon Lewis has created an online forum for the discussion of all things daguerreotype. The forum isn’t just for practicing daguerreotypists but is geared for the discussion of collecting, preservation, case making, etc. Go check it out!

-Jonathan

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