Travelwide Ground Glass modifications

[Steve Pitchford]

Derw Bedo & others on the "Using and Modifying the 4x5 travelwide camera..

Below are shown my efforts at modifying the TW GG. I am posting about 12 photos . Since only four images are allowed per post I will make four post to cover my modifications.

[/ATTACH] 145068145069 145071145070

[Steve Pitchford]

145078So here are four more photos of GG mods.
145075145076145077

[Kirk Gittings]

this should be in the DIY classification if anyone is going to find it easily in the future.

[vinny]

I've seen ground glass frames made from old film holders. Cut out the septum, add glass.

[Steve Pitchford]

The posting process is too difficult so I'm quitting with 8 photos for now.
SteveP

[Tim Meisburger]

Steve, if you save your images to something like Photobucket, then click of the IMG link, you can paste that in the text of a message and your image will appear large size in the post. Its a bit convoluted, but once you figure it out it makes this all easy.

[Drew Bedo]

Steve: Thanks for the demo. Looks like an effective approach to solving the GG issue for the TravelWide.

[Oren Grad]

Thread moved to DIY.

[Jon Shiu]

Great! How do you like the plastic screen and how much cost?

I did something like that when I first got the camera, but only had 4x5 glass screen handy. I do have some rear projection plastic screen that I might try if this one gets broken.
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?125258-Using-and-Modifying-the-Travelwide-4x5-camera&p=1286301&viewfull=1#post1286301

[Steve Pitchford]

Steve, if you save your images to something like Photobucket, then click of the IMG link, you can paste that in the text of a message and your image will appear large size in the post. Its a bit convoluted, but once you figure it out it makes this all easy.

Tim,
Thank you for your advice. I rarely shoot digital, just with my pocket Sony Cybershot. I do have friends who use cloud storage and guess I should learn to do the same. Is Photobucket a good choice. What about Flicker or Amazon or Google?
On another note - Are you still in Bangkok? I visited there in 1970 when I was in the USAF stationed in Japan. Great memories and some good photos.
Looking forward to your advice.

Happytrails,
SteveP

[Steve Pitchford]

Thread moved to DIY.

Thanks. I wasn't thinking of it as a do it yourself at the time. It was intended for a more narrow reader group - The Using and Modifying the TravelWide folks. I used the LF Image sharing forum/TravelWide thread to post photos with the intent of linking them to an ongoing discussion on the U&MTW thread. It was a clumsy effort and I'm hearing there are better methods to accomplish that task. Feel free to make more suggestions.
SteveP

[Steve Pitchford]

Steve: Thanks for the demo. Looks like an effective approach to solving the GG issue for the TravelWide.

Drew Bedo & et al.

More GG talk- I almost wish you had posted your GG modification sooner, before I had ordered an oversize acrylic GG. I'm curious to the cost as it took me a couple hours on two days to cut out the center of the TW focusing screen and glue in my GG. It came out great, the screen is bright and easy to focus, but I made a few mistakes, things I would do differently if I got a do-over.
Below I described my efforts or issues more in depth in case any other TW owners wanted to give it a try. Also the photos posted on the Image Sharing LF forum have been moved to DIY.
The GG was ordered oversize by 5cm each direction to have working room for gluing and placement.
3cm over would have been sufficient. As it were it forced me to cut the interior ledge on the TW GG narrower than best case. I could have chosen to grind down the GG screen but decided not to.

The TW GG material was hard to work without the right tools. I'm guessing it's Lexan or a sister plastic. It drilled okay but cutting it was difficult. I tried a hand Exacto saw, a Dremmel tool, even a Rockwell vibrating saw but none cut clean or exact. Finally, I made the center cutout on my router table with a ¼ pointed groove bit. The router had no RPM control and I had a couple small blow outs and edge feathering near the TW walls. Lots of filing and hand sanding brought the TW bonding ledge down to correct dimensions to allow my new GG to fit in.

A foamcore platform was used to hold the new GG at the exact height to meet the ledge level. Then the GG was masked off and spot glued in three places with super glue to hold it firm while JB clear epoxy was applied. After drying strips of black 2cm thick, self adhesive hobby foam was added around the edges to hide the glue bond and frame the screen area.

I should mention that I purchased the acrylic GG screen, (thru ebay, as Bohema Studio), but the inclosed business card said “Svedovsky Large Format C&A”,www.svedovsky.com , email: sales@svedovsky.com. It's in Poland and my contact was Piotr Niewierowicz. Cost was $50 plus $10 more for the grid lines and about $10 for shipping. I suppose you could buy direct from him if you didn't want to deal with ebay. I use Paypal.

Happy trails,
SteveP

[Steve Pitchford]

Jon,

See my last post to Drew Bedo. I left more info and the merchant address. The GG is highly crafted, bright and easy viewing. You can order the grid to different sizes. I chose 3/4 inch for a more open viewing.

Happy trails,
SteveP

[Tim Meisburger]

Hi Steve,

I signed up for Photobucket a long time ago, and use it almost exclusively for posting images here, so don't have any advice on other cloud-hosting services. I prefer this to uploading images as it provides a larger image that doesn't have to be clicked on to see. If you use photobucket (or any other cloud service) to post to LFPF you need to re-size your images so the final file is less than 1 megabyte. I use Microsoft Office and the preset for large document, and that seems to work well.

[Steve Pitchford]

Hey Vinny,

A couple of people have done that already. All of my film holders have metal septum's and I don't have the tools to cut it cleanly. Would like to see some photos of that method.

Happy trails,
SteveP

[rjschell]

145188
I had a 5x7 ground glass cut down to 4 5/8 x 5 5/8 and attached 3/16 x 3/8 wood strips (hobby store). It works for me.