Zinc Process Recording
Posted: Sat May 04, 2019 3:21 pm
I've acquired Berliner's instruction manual for recording and am almost ready to prepare the chemistry. The accomplishment so far has been making a pure zinc disc from bullion. I melted down 1-½, five pound ingots and made a ½" thick, 8" disc. It then took me ~16 hours to mill out all the major imperfections in the casting. Now I'm polishing it and hopefully tomorrow will be able to record.
The notes on how to prepare the wax covering are pretty clear, XXX grams of beeswax is dissolved in YYY ml of cold ether and the layer that rises to the top is the wax covering. What's not clear is the acid solution used. I've read that hydrochloric, chromic, sulfuric were each used, as well as a mixture of dilute sulfuric and potassium dichromate. The earliest documents list the solution for chromic acid and ARSC has an article on H2SO4 & potassium dichromate being the last solution used, but no formula.
If anyone has any conclusive documentation, please let me know. Otherwise I'll just give it my best guess.
Thank you.
The notes on how to prepare the wax covering are pretty clear, XXX grams of beeswax is dissolved in YYY ml of cold ether and the layer that rises to the top is the wax covering. What's not clear is the acid solution used. I've read that hydrochloric, chromic, sulfuric were each used, as well as a mixture of dilute sulfuric and potassium dichromate. The earliest documents list the solution for chromic acid and ARSC has an article on H2SO4 & potassium dichromate being the last solution used, but no formula.
If anyone has any conclusive documentation, please let me know. Otherwise I'll just give it my best guess.
Thank you.