Building 4x5 camera

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Keeping some woods stable is difficult , My bass guitarist friend travelled the all guitar shops and tried 90s Fender Jazz Basses new , all sounded excellent with rotten necks. All guitar shops were complaining about the quality of maple of Fender.
Wooden instruments lost their interest to moisture only after 100 years when all wood turn to crystalline.

Thats why all major violin makers preferred the old wood collected even from Swiss hundreds of years of age wood buildings.
Try to buy wood from a instrument maker who collects them from grand father to father and son.
Maple,Oak,Mahogany is heavy weight woods and I can give you a tip to stop rotting.

First take a piece from your collection , saw it long two pieces and turn one piece to 180 degrees and glue these two piececes again.
If one piece rot to one side , other piece stops it with reverse force.
Other tip is to saw the wood to two pieces and place a third or more other pieces to the gap

[matthew001]

Cut lensboard today to test the wood - Baltic Birch. I'm going to test a few different woods at 1/8" -- Birds Eye Maple Lensboard .

[Old-N-Feeble]

May I suggest you stabilize the birds eye maple with a backing of thin plywood? The plywood should be smaller to make a step for the light seal. Better yet, you could use birds eye veneer on marine plywood.

[matthew001]

May I suggest you stabilize the birds eye maple with a backing of thin plywood? The plywood should be smaller to make a step for the light seal. Better yet, you could use birds eye veneer on marine plywood.

That's what I was thinking - laying 1/8" not only for stability but for a light baffle.

Front:
Back:

[Old-N-Feeble]

I've made many lens boards with an outside "pretty" layer of wood sandwiched with an inside "stabilizing" layer of plywood glued together under flat pressure. I've never had a problem. Still... with birds eye maple I'd think about veneer over two layers of plywood (making a baffle). Doing it the "right way" with joints is best... but very costly.

[steven_e007]

I was gonna vote for that but it wasn't on the list... *L*

What the heck is sapele?

tim in san jose where exotic woods are burned for charcoal

I did find this gem on wikipedia (so it must be true!):

The American car maker Cadillac also uses sapele wood for interior wood trim on its vehicles.

Sapele is what was once called an 'African Mahogany' - although I haven't seen that name used for a while. A quick google and it only now seems to be used for species of "khaya", which I've not come across. Years ago I could go to any stockists and buy mahogany and teak. Now these woods are quite hard to find (over here in the UK) and only really available from specialist suppliers at very high prices. There are severe export restrictions on mahogany.

A quick google of a UK wood stockist and I see you can buy sapele, iroko, obeche, idigbo, utile, keruing, meranti, balau, wenge. (No... I haven't a clue what most of them are, either...)

I think part of this is due to the attempt to grow new species in a sustainable way rather than cut down established rain forests - but I'm also sure part of it is due to various trade organisations stopping importers passing off a species of wood as something else to make it more saleable. Over here we have the trade descriptions act and trading standards - in the US I know you have The Federal Trade commission. I suspect these organisations get involved with how importers and suppliers describe woods. Ask for 'mahogany' now and you should only get one of the Swietenia species. I think maybe 30 or more years ago, when things were less well regulated, you might have got any number of things.

[Steve Smith]

No... I haven't a clue what most of them are, either

They are all stuff which trees are made from!


Steve.

[steven_e007]

They are all stuff which trees are made from!


Steve.

Trees?

What have trees got to do with it?

[k_jupiter]

Trees?

What have trees got to do with it?

Yeah, what he said. I thought we were talking about wood. We all know where wood comes from... the lumber yard.

tim in san jose

[k_jupiter]

I checked through the list of woods... but I couldn't find MDF!

I just cut down a MDF tree the other day. Boy are they tough on chain saw blades.

tim in san jose