Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 by Various
page 11 of 136 (08%)
page 11 of 136 (08%)
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that it would not be remunerative, but rather the contrary. It was with
something of this feeling that I was led to try and see what could be done to attain the end in view, and as I knew of no data to go by, I had to use my own experience, or rather experiment on my own account. Since emulsion was constantly at hand in my establishment, in the commercial production of my gelatine dry plates, it was but natural I should first have turned to this as a mode of obtaining the desired results; but, alas! all attempts in that direction signally failed--the ware most persistently refused to have anything to do with emulsion. The bugbear was the fixing agent or hypo., which not only left indelible marks, but, despite any amount of washing, the image on a finished plate vanished to nothing at the end of an hour's exposure in the show window. There was nothing left but to seek other means for the attainment of my object. I would not have troubled the reader as to this unsuccessful line of experiment but that I wished to put him on his guard and save him useless researches in the same direction. To cut matters short, the method I found best and most direct was the now old but still excellent wet collodion transfer. I will now proceed to detail my system of working to facilitate the matter to the inexperienced in collodion transfer. TERRA-COTTA PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRACTICE. The first and indispensable operation, in the preparation of the surface to receive the transfer, is the "sizing of the surface." It simply consists of a solution of gelatine chrome-alumed, as follows: Gelatine. 10 grains. |
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