Newbie from Edinburgh Scotland

Hi.

Tintype has captured and rekindled my photographic interest. Photography is part of my life for a couple of decades, initially on 35mm film SLR, then digital SLR and now my iphone. I had all the darkroom kit, but gave it away when I bought my Nikon D70. I'm in the process of making a 5x4 as a test. If it works, I'll use that design for a 10x8.
After spending a couple of weeks designing and drawing using Sketchup, I've literally started cutting wood today.

The design is to use a magnifying glass as a lens, around 235mm, drop in appeture and a guillotine shutter if it's faster than a couple of seconds. Bellows will be my challenge but there are some great youtube vids kicking around. I may just set it to infinity or hyperfocus for a landscape shot and use cardboard and ducktape to check my build/design is light tight and the ground glass and film plane are in the same place. The body, film, ground glass and lens holders will be made from mdf off the back of a scrapped Ikea cupboard.

For the test I'm going to use Harman positive paper and developed with cafenol. Using salt as a fixer seems to be too long for me so I'll buy some rapid fix instead.

Then when I know it all works, I'll buy the bits I need for wet plate and build a 10x8.

Thanks for all the info on the site, and I hope to contribute in the future.

Cheers

Welcome aboard!

Welcome to the forum !

Mike

Welcome!