Alan: Do you, by any chance, have the cat.# for the Harbor Freight cutter? When I check the internet listing, the only fly cutter they list has a maximum cut of 1 3/4".
Alan: Do you, by any chance, have the cat.# for the Harbor Freight cutter? When I check the internet listing, the only fly cutter they list has a maximum cut of 1 3/4".
I always found a metal shop to expand lens boards. There are lots of them around. The smaller shops will take walk in piece work.Originally Posted by snuck
I think what I may do is cut a giant square hole in a Sinar lens board with a hacksaw and trim down the pre-existant lensboard. Then bolt the two together. That way there won't be too much circular hole cutting. Thank you all for your ideas.
Don't waste money on hole saw bits if don't have one. The square hole in the lensboard is fine. You can drill small holes at the corners that will allow you to start the saw. Use a spacer block between the lens and board. Make it out of mdf or plywood. You can rough cut a round hole in the spacer alot easier than in the metal board. You can attach the lensboard to the spacer with wood screws. Same for the flange to spacer.
Ok, well I did finally mount it, and I had a request as to how I did it. The answer is that it isn't pretty and you could probably do a better job. That said... I simply did this
The order of fitting is the lens, sits on the original lensboard/holding board, which is then bolted to a Sinar board.
1) Using a small hacksaw and cutting oil, I chopped an enormous hole into a spare junky Sinar board I had lying around. Sinar boards are made out of good aluminum in most cases, so they take the punishment. If you take a look at the bottom fo the lens board, the distance I had from the INTERIOR CORNER of the BACK SURFACE to the EDGE OF THE NEW SQUARE HOLE is 9mm, on all sides.
2) I used a trusty flat file to file away excess aluminum and clean up the holes. You'll find that using a hacksaw is a major PITA, is messy and leaves jagged edges. If you have a jig or scroll saw I would highly recommend using that instead.
3) I trimmed the resin lensboard to 5.25" (13.3cm) to a size just smaller the sinar board. This is important because of the way that sinar cameras hang onto their boards. If your lens doesn't come with a preexisting board like mine did, make one out of plywood and use the Nikkor's mounting flange to attach the lens to the plywood.
4) Finally I drilled 4 holes at the corners of the resin board (I was pretty imprecise too -ugh), drilled 4 holes in the Sinar board that it was to sit on top of. Bolted the assembly together, and walla. Pics to follow.
Issues:
- For those of you using Sinar Shutters, you will probably need 1/4" thick holding board to ensure clearance. I sure hope that the Sinar Shutter has a 2.5" diameter hole in it, because that's how large the back element of this thing is.
-The front end looks intimidating, because the lens assembly sticks over the sinar board a little. But the rear element is manageably small and sticks through the Sinar board, with little fuss.
Ok here are some images of this thing.
The first image is of the front. As you can see the lens mounting flange clearly overlaps the Sinar lens board. Good thing that the screws for the mounting flange fit well within. The resin board that the lens is attached to, is cut just smaller than the sinar board, because the Sinar needs a little real estate at the top and the bottom of the lens board, so the camera can hang on to the lens and board assembly securely. If the lens were not pushed away from the Sinar board, by the resin board, the aluminum bit at the bottom and the aluminum sliding lock would have nothing to grab on to.
As you can see the lens mounts on its original resin board via black hex screws, which in turn is mounted by the silver screws onto the Sinar board.
In the second image, you can see this gory thing from the back. showing that the little hex screws that attach the APO-Nikkor to the resin board. here you can also see the nuts that attach the resin board to the Sinar Board. I am eventually going to spraypaint the back of this with matte black and use a dremel cutting disc to take out the excess screw length.
Finally finished. Here it is mounted on my camera. Notice that in order to focus this monster, you really need both extension rails, small and larger on the base rail in order to get enough. You'll also need two bellows, as one won't be enough, and a standard to hold them up. Don't use the Norma Bellows I'm using. I was just doing that out of desperation-I suspect it vignettes. Anybody want to give me their spare square profile Sinar bellows?
I love my Norma, I really do, because the front standard is so stiff, it holds this lens up without complaint even in wind. Although since the lens is housed in aluminum rather than brass, it is much lighter than it looks.
Instead I found out that the weak point in this assembly was unfortunately, the inherent flex of my tripod and ball head. When I use the cap as a shutter, I get shake from the tripod Now I need to get another tripod somehow (big sigh).
That "thing" is huge.
C
Which is exactly why the Norma is a nice camera. It holds the damn thing up, with no mess, and no fuss.
Lighter than it looks however. Now I need to find a ~95mm protective filter for it.
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