I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread for those of us just getting started with wet plate - I've got lots of little questions that keep coming up and don't want to clog up this whole subforum with them! Hoping this will become a resource for people interested in trying wet plate or starting out, and that some experienced members will also populate the thread and share their wisdom

This morning I was preparing the sandarac varnish and a few questions arose:
  • I seem to only get about ~20mL of the sandarac/alcohol mixture through a coffee filter before it effectively stops letting anything through. Is this unavoidable, or is there a better type of filtration I should use? It took quite a while (and quite a lot of filters!).
  • My recipe calls for 220mL ethanol and 38g of gum sandarac. Now that I've dissolved the gum and filtered everything, I'm left with just shy of 200mL, due to absorbtion from the filters and spillage. The next step is to add 22ml lavender oil and 4ml distilled water; my gut instinct is to do just that, but was wondering if I should reduce those slightly to compensate for the loss of the ethanol/sandarac solution?
  • I've got it in a nice clear lab bottle for now, but was thinking of moving it to an old glass pomegranate syrup bottle with a cork stopper I had laying around. In addition to freeing up the lab bottle, the syrup bottle is just the right size for the quantity I've made, and has a cool "Old World" look, not to mention a nice little spout for pouring. Any concerns with a cork stopper or would I be fine to use it for my varnish? It is quite a dark green class, so hard to tell the colour of the varnish or if there are any impurities in it, if that matters for anything down the road.
  • Is there a recommended way to clean the alcohol/sandarac residue off of glass? Found it very resistant to coming off.


I was also doing a test fit of some of the aluminium trophy plates I ordered and had a few questions there. The retailer indicated they were thin enough to be used without having to cut or modify the film holder, which is true. Like the other plates I've seen in videos, the actual dimensions are a little different than a standard 4x5 piece of sheet film, so it doesn't necessarily go under the rails that keep sheet film in place as it's not quite wide enough. On the other hand, it's ever so slightly longer than the exposed part. This seems to keep it more or less in place when the loading flap is shut, although giving it a firm whack does jostle it out of place.

  • Does anyone else shoot like this? Anything to I should be doing as far as technique, etc? I will be modifying a film holder for ambrotypes anyways, so not married to the idea.
  • I have a line on the trophy supplier whom the retailer buys from - they advertise being able to cut to spec, so I could potentially buy ones that fit the holder more exactly (be held in place by the film rails). Does anyone use plates wide enough to fit under the film rails of the holder? Any pros/cons to that method? I'm thinking the scratches they'd put in the emulsion would be a potential reason not to do it.


Plenty more to come, I'm sure!