I'm in the process of making my first 4x with 5 view camera. I'm interested in darker woods with wavy appearance.
What type of would did you choose for your projects? Why did you choose it? What was the price of the wood you chose?
I'm in the process of making my first 4x with 5 view camera. I'm interested in darker woods with wavy appearance.
What type of would did you choose for your projects? Why did you choose it? What was the price of the wood you chose?
LF cameras have been made from many woods. Traditional woods seem to be Mahogany, cherry. Some walnut. Ebony wood and Teak are tough on tools. I think Burk and James used Beach, but they painted them battleship grey. A dense wood with tight grain is needed. I once had a Rajah 5x7 from India that was in some nice looking tropical wood I'd never seen.
Oak is too coarse, I've never seen Hickory either. Soft woods are n ot used.
My recollection is that there was a thread on wood selection here on LFP not long ago.
Drew Bedo
www.quietlightphoto.com
http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo
There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!
Burke & James used maple for their cameras. Beech splits too easily, and is dimensionally unstable.
I have an old French camera made from oak, but it's a much finer-grained oak than any modern oak I've seen. Modern mahogany doesn't seem as nice as the old stuff either.
I'd say maple, cherry, or walnut. All can have the nice waves you're looking for, but that varies quite a bit from piece to piece. A good maple is a little hard on the tools too, but I think it might be worth it. Hard (but not impossible) to stain very dark, if you want a dark finish, but beautiful in a yellow or red honey finish! (And then you have to decide, sugar maple, rock maple, tiger maple, birds-eye maple... )
Maple is the most common wood for electric guitars, if you want to consider the finish possibilities. (Camera makers could learn a LOT from luthiers...)
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
Dark and wavy makes me think of claro walnut.
You probably don't want something too dense if you're concerned with weight. Something around the density of maple or beech is a good target (0.7ish specific gravity).
Could white ash be recommended? Anybody used it?
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mahogany- very even grain which makes the woodworking easy- looks great, light and very attractive once finished.
I made my 14x17 with birch cuz there's a lot of it around and it's cheap.
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Thanks for all the replies and input, at the moment I'm deciding between using cherry, mahogany, and walnut. They seem to be pretty dense and durable and they also have a nice dark look that I want. My choice now really depends on availability and price of each.
Jatoba - south american tree,sometimes called Brazilian Cherry(although not a cherry)
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