11x14 camera build attempt - Questions

[phillip2446]

thanks

[Pali K]

I have been struggling to get the camera finished because of ridiculous deadlines at work and conflicting priorities for my dad. Even though the puzzle pieces are almost all done, there is still good bit of work to do on the back and mounting screws/nuts that there is several hours of machining time needed to finish the camera. My dad just mentioned that he has some rush jobs that will take pretty much all his attention for the next 3 weeks and the camera will have to wait.

With that, here are the pictures of what everything looks like right now. Bellows shipped from china a few days ago and should be here around time to start machining the remaining items.







On a positive side, the parts look very clean and I am sure sanding and finishing this will make it look really nice. I am also starting to get a sense for the final weight of the camera and this might actually be light enough to lug around a few miles.

BTW, what color should I anodize the aluminum parts? I am leaning towards red (vs black) which might go well with darker wood stain/finish and black bellows.

[Tin Can]

Red!

[Pali K]

Red!

Done! Will go with Red.

[StoneNYC]

Wow! This puts my home made box camera to shame! I wish I could have someone make me those parts for my 14x17 (which would be 14x20 in case I wanted to do 14x20 or 12x20 backs for sometime in the future).

Amazing!

[Pali K]

Thanks Stone. I started working on it again this week and have a few more parts ready. So close but still some work left to do.

It's moving slower now because I keep running into things that require some thinking and ordering parts that will go best with it. For example, mechanism to clamp the rotating back on the camera and etc.

Bellows are here so will be making bellows frame and attaching it to assembled standards soon. Will post pics when things look materially different

[Pali K]

Picking things back up and now it's time for the smaller items.

Front standard with Deardorff board



Lead Screw Mount - Custom Part





Lead Screw Focusing Knob - Custom Part



I also ordered a good bit of knurled nuts and bolts to use as the locking hardware for the standards that should arrive next week.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Pali K nice looking build so far. I've built five ULF cameras now and it id best o take your time. You have to think backwards from time to time. No matter how much you plan you always have to adjust as you go. Great learning experience.

BTW, where did you find the lead screw. It is still one of those things I have not researched yet.

[SergeiR]

Nice work indeed.

[Pali K]

Pali K nice looking build so far. I've built five ULF cameras now and it id best o take your time. You have to think backwards from time to time. No matter how much you plan you always have to adjust as you go. Great learning experience.

BTW, where did you find the lead screw. It is still one of those things I have not researched yet.

Thank you Jim! I certainly am taking time to think through things because I know that small mistakes at this stage will likely cause bigger headaches. The latest challenges for now is how to build a spring mechanism for the back that is clean and effective. The ground glass frame that will go on the back is quite large in this format and I know that I will need relatively strong spring system to provide adequate pressure. I would appreciate if you have any ideas on this that have worked for you in your previous builds.

Regarding the screw, it is a "acme rod" that was a suggestion in this thread earlier. If you do a search for "acme threaded rod" on ebay, you will get plenty of options. One thing to note is that right-handed rods are very common but it means that the front standard will move towards the back of the camera when you rotate the focus know clockwise. Based on my understanding, production cameras with this focus mechanism use left-handed rods so the focus movement is reversed. I figured if our minds can get used to upside down images, they can probably adjust to reversed focus as well

Nice work indeed.

Thank you Sergei! It has been a really exciting project so far.