Daguerreotype Process: I tincture of Iodine of any use?

[Drew Bedo]

I did a Dasg workshop years ago. It was fun but I just cannot see well enough to decern the delicate color changes when costing s plste with Iodine fumes.

Anyway, I was thinking about it this morning and this thought floated to the surface. Can tincture of Iodine be used ass as source of iodine when sensitizing s plate? In my concept, a measured amount of the alcohol suspension of elemental Iodine is placed in the fuming box and the plate exposed, the alcohol evaporates and the Iodine sublimates.

I this would work, the amount of Iodine could be controlled and the Iodine safely stored in a sealed bottle for long periods.

Any thoughts from Dag practitioners?

[maltfalc]

tincture works fine as long as the plate is warm enough to prevent condensation. a piece of paper towel will help the tincture evaporate better than just using a drop. no idea if it'll be precise enough to skip checking the colour of the plate though.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

In my experience tincture of iodine is not practical for Daguerreotypes; It takes way too long to fume and (maybe the alcohol or condensation as suggested by Maltfalc) causes fogging. Using test strips instead of color may work (it does with bromine), but you would have to be precise with how long you give the iodine to "recover" after each fuming. Some of the 19th century manuals describe using bromine water (so bromine diluted in water) as a one-shot accelerator rather than bromine in calcium hydroxide. This may be similar to what you are suggesting.

[Drew Bedo]

My experience is thin; a few small plates at a workshop using the Becquerel process with Jerry Spagnoli. A great experience overall.

In the distant past, I had some wet chemistry lab experience in the oil industry, and later on in a radiation lab. So this morning I had these visions of calibrating and standardizing the concentration of tincture, how much to introduce and other variables. The point about condensation would be another consideration.

Perhaps putting a drop or two on a piece of filter paper would be part of the process. The idea is to be able to quantify how much Iodine is in play.

I just put it these thoughtsout there for others to mull over, as at this stage in my life, doing any Dag work is out of the question.

[Drew Bedo]

Rats! Tried to fix the title, but can't figure that out.

Got it, no problem. -- Oren