Whole plate (6.5 x 8.4 inches) Mercury Pot
here are some images of my sweet new mercury pot made by the pyromaniac and industrial artist , Rusty Oliver. In case you all didn’t know, daguerreotypes are developed out over hot mercury. Mercury sits in a cup at the bottom of the pot and is heated to about 167 degrees fahrenheit. The daguerreotype plate with a latent imaged sits atop the hot mercury in a holder and 5 minutes or so later, an image should appear :/
The pot design was a mixture of a Mike Robinson’s design, my own design and the fabrication skills of Mr. Rusty Oliver.
Here are some of those pictures before I made the plate holders on top:
here is the finished pot with the plate seat and holder. The seat has a seperate slide to keep the pot sealed when the plate holder is off. The plate holder has a seperate slide to that locks with the seat slide. When the plate holder is placed on the pot both slides are opened to expose the plate to the mercury and develop out the plate.
