Monorail view camera pt. 2

OK, a couple of months without a post and of course the camera is completed now. To be honest there wasn't a whole lot of "woodworking" to be done after assembling the front and back frames, Instead, the project was all about fabricating parts in wood, metal, and fabric.

The lens boards were made after the frames were completed. I have one lens, with a sort of odd-ball 33mm diameter shutter. I cut the hole in the lens board to the right there just freehand with a knife, and sanded it smooth. These lens boards are just two pieces of 2mm birchplywood laminated to provide a lip. The walnut veneer was added for aesthetic reasons. All the gluing was done with some contact cement I bought in France to repair some shoes once.

Arguably the most challenging part of this build was making the bellows. There are plenty of resources online for assisting with this process, Google is your friend. The construction is a sandwich of a thin, coated nylon, card stock, and bookbinder cloth, and should be completely light-tight as well as fold flat. I sketched the bellows on my phone's CAD program, printed out at full scale, and made a model first to get the size right.

The assembled materials and tools for this day-long job. My daughter helped on a professional day when she was staying home from school. Here we've started gluing the card slats on the nylon.

The fourth side must be glued on a sort of ironing-board we fabricated from a parquet flooring offcut from a building site. After this step, the bookbinder's fabric was glued on, with the seam on the opposite side. Then the whole construction was turned inside-out and birch plywood frames were glued to the ends.

The front standards being fabricated from aluminum bar stock. I drilled a bunch of holes, and filed them flat.

Basically all the parts, just waiting for some screws.

The completed camera, on Easter.

One of the first shots, of my daughter and her friend. Old Arista ortho-lith film processed in Polymax.

New project: Monorail view camera pt. 1

Being a fellow of many interests, I've always wanted a view camera to be able to play with movements and giant negatives. It may seem anachronistic in this age of phones with 20 megapixel optics, but view cameras offer the ability to correct perspective in-camera as well as other focus tricks, and the giant negatives (4x5 inches in my case) when scanned still offer far greater resolution than any digital camera.

View cameras can be bought complete relatively cheaply now, but of course I'd rather build one and challenge myself with a precision project. This won't be my first homemade camera: I've made dozens of pinhole cameras in the past, and most recently made this simple large format camera.

My basic plan started by finding a lens of appropriate specs (135mm f 5.6 in this case) and price (almost cheap as dirt) on ebay, downloading Jon Grepstads plans here, and sketching my ideas on my phone's CAD program. My first diversion from Grepstad's plans was to order a cheap double dovetailed camera Arca Swiss compatible rail and a pair of compatible clamps from Ebay. These things are ubiquitous out there nowadays, and very inexpensive, though they take weeks to ship. The rail is really designed for mounting cameras with giant lenses, or stereophotography rigs, but will serve me fine for this camera.

Secondly, I want to have a smaller front standard to make for a more compact total kit.

The rear standard will also be redesigned with a different focusing screen spring mechanism and non-rotating back.

Most of the parts of the camera. I had a little black walnut, and procured a little more (including veneer) for this project.

The first diversion from the plans: I'm using polycarbonate for my focusing screen. It needs a light texture on it, so I taped a piece of 1000 grit wet/dry paper on a sheet of glass, and using window cleaner for lubricant scuffed away. It worked admirably, though ultimately I may get another piece bead blasted for better uniformity.

After marking the film frame with a silver paint pen, I cut pieces of 5mm walnut as a frame for the ground glass.

These were just glued with contact cement on both sides of the glass, providing I rigid sandwich construction.

The larger black walnut pieces were dimensioned, and then I got to play with my newish moving fillister plane to make rabbets.

The frame was constructed with stopped sliding dovetails. I'm not too happy about the gappy joinery.

Nor am I happy with this eviden twist.

Glued up it's flat, but the joints are pretty ugly. I'm out of practice. And I really could have used a 1/8" chisel for this job.

The finished parts so far: focusing screen and rear standard, with the lens and monrail waiting for the rest of the components.