Pix of your home-built cams here please

[Dave Parker]

Originally Posted by Andy Tymon

A piece of ply, some u shaped aluminum channel,a plastic cutting board, the front standard off some band j camera,a surgical brace support thingy.a bandsaw blade, a rabies tag for a cat, various nuts and bolts, a picture frame from the thrift store, two yards of drapery fabric and some glue oh and a bit of time..why an 8x10 camera of course! oh forgot threaded rod and brass inserts and those plastic thingies they use in the packaging for kids toys these days.

I based my design on a cross between a philips explorer and a kodak masterview, the rest was bodgefied into existance,hope you guys like it!
oh and special thanks to all those apuggers who answered other peoples questions and provided solutions, especially pfitz for the tip on using a tile to glue up frames and calamity jane for the drapery blackout fabric for the bellows.

Andy,

Great looking homebuilt, I like it!!!

And of course Jane's cameras are always beautiful, way to go everybody!!!

Dave

[Dan Fromm]

Originally Posted by Andy Tymon

A piece of ply, <snip>

Cute.

I can see base tilt at the rear, rise and maybe shift at the front. Any other movements?

Cheers,

Dan

[nick mulder]

righto - here it is:

4x5 - can be converted to 5x7 but I'm going to make a 8x10 next with the lessons learned here

A $3 135mm Zeiss on it, which is the only thing I didn't build (and the Linhof tripod I got for $20 second hand, woohoo!) - broken shutter, so i stop down and use ND filter so the exposure is 30 secs+ and I can use the film holder darkslide as a shutter

took more time and money than I thought, but it was worth the skills gained

will post first photo soon - (flowers/painting with light)

cheers (;

nick

[barryjyoung]

Very nice camera Andy, congratulations on your improvisation artistry. Now what did I do with those rabies tags I had lying about?

Barry Young

[barryjyoung]

Interesting idea the twin rails. Great thinking
Barry Young

[nick mulder]

Originally Posted by barryjyoung

Interesting idea the twin rails. Great thinking
Barry Young

Tis a good idea yes, very easy to build as you dont have to fiddle with wrapping a clunky collar system around you rail, however the idea isn't mine - got it from another home job that I found on the net (cant find it right now) but from memory I think I have copied it quite substantially..

All due respect and thanks to that individual -

I forgot to mention I am yet to make the little bits that swivel and hold on the lensboard, GG and backs - the tape is doing nicely in the meantime ...

also ahould note:

2 lessons learned:

>1. Got to make sure my front frame is bigger than my bellows or the standard (up and downy bit) will rub on it with large tilts on the front

>2. Have to design a release system for the bellows, as with it all bunched up when focused on infinity I cant get any movement wot-so-eva - ie. no shifts with architectural photography ! which is what got me interested in view cams in the first place .. :P ah well tho, have used swing for macro so its not all a waste of time

ok three lessons >> Bellows are a right pain in the behind

[nick mulder]

heres another little job i got into

Went to the chemistry dept's glass blowing lab the other day to get a peice of broken coating rod glass 'fused' into something not so sharp - got talking to the guys there about photography and pt/pd printing and coating rods - they baulked at the cost of the one I had bought in and offered to make me one for free - I had the idea of a three in one just the night before... about 30 mins later it was done (well, ok it did spend the night in an oven).

looks funny yes, with that little bent bit however it works great.

I am only using it for coating cyantotype emulsions for pencil drawing reproduction at the mo' as 8x10 coat is the smallest size on it, and I'm only up to a 4x5 camera so far

[Dan Fromm]

I'm glad to see that two square tubes with spacers work so nicely. That was about the third design I came up with for the base of my tandem rig. I'd have done it, but came across some very inexpensive t-slotted extrusion that required less drilling and cutting.

Cheers,

Dan

[nick mulder]

Originally Posted by Dan Fromm

I'm glad to see that two square tubes with spacers work so nicely. That was about the third design I came up with for the base of my tandem rig. I'd have done it, but came across some very inexpensive t-slotted extrusion that required less drilling and cutting.

I thought I'd need to put in some film shim's to make the spacers just a tad thicker than the bits the bolts for the standards went through (as they were cut from the same piece of plastic/nylon/teflon(?) stuff) - but it turns out they run just fine for focusing ...

I'm going to look into rack and friction drives maybe - but it might just be extra work (and weight) for little gain ...

Hmmmm, anyone built an enlarger ? same sort of issues ?

[photomc]

Nice job with the glass..we used to do this all the time when I was in Army working in a lab. Never worried about glass tubes if they broke we just made new ones...now most medical labs can't have open flame in them, but then they have pretty much stopped using the old types of glass ware, everything is done by a machine/analyser.

Originally Posted by nick mulder

heres another little job i got into

Went to the chemistry dept's glass blowing lab the other day to get a peice of broken coating rod glass 'fused' into something not so sharp - got talking to the guys there about photography and pt/pd printing and coating rods - they baulked at the cost of the one I had bought in and offered to make me one for free - I had the idea of a three in one just the night before... about 30 mins later it was done (well, ok it did spend the night in an oven).

looks funny yes, with that little bent bit however it works great.

I am only using it for coating cyantotype emulsions for pencil drawing reproduction at the mo' as 8x10 coat is the smallest size on it, and I'm only up to a 4x5 camera so far