Droopy rear standard on Ebony camera?

[Eric Leppanen]

I also own an RSW45 and it behaves much the same way. The front standard has a fair amount of slop as well when racked fully out. Part of this is due to not enough rail remaining in the flatbed at full extension to avoid at least some drooping. Part of this is due to Ebony deliberately leaving a bit of slop in the factory settings to allow the wood to expand in response to increased humidity without the rails binding.

Personally I found the rear standard to be weighty enough that once it drooped into position it tended to stay in place. Ebony and Robert White in the UK jointly developed the camera for entry-level, wide-to-normal focal length applications in landscape and architecture, rigidity at maximum extension was not the design focus. For longer focal lengths Ebony recommended top hat lens boards and also offered an extension back which enabled the RSW to support a 400mm telephoto.

I have owned a variety of Ebony cameras over the years, in my experience they all exhibited some degree of humidity accommodation. The RSW45 is the only one with this much slop.

[Drew Wiley]

I learned about the idiosyncrasies from Ken Bromwell, talking with him in person at a trade show back when he was the first US importer of Ebony. It was many years later I bought an Ebony myself. No regrets. A few minor quirks, but still the best quality line of wooden cameras ever in my opinion.

[eli]

I suggest checking out FAQ #3 here

https://web.archive.org/web/20161111...icles/FAQ.html

before making any modifications to the camera.

The screwdriver in this image looks like a "Vessel" brand tool and it may have Japanese Industrial Camera Screws JICS aka simply JIS, which are a cross-point (+) like a Philips, but designed to stay in the screw-head, without the cam-out design feature of the day to day Philips so be careful no to wreck the screw-head or better yet, buy a JIS driver or file the tips down on the Philips so it is more like the JIS tools.

When sunk in wood, such as that camera, there is no a lot of room for error.

This is especially true if you are working on Small and Medium Format lenses and cameras, etc.

Vessel 0,00,000,0000 cross-points are JIS and come in singles and sets, and while I'm at it, Wera slotted screwdrivers are a slimmer blade than Wiha Brand, I have both, and a few PB Swiss slotted drivers. Even Jeweler's flat screwdrivers can be too thick a blade (which surprised the heck out of me) so if buying locally, beware you might want to return them if they do no do the job.

Remember, unless it's listed as a JIS cross-point, it's likely a Philips head tool, which are used in German cameras, etc.

I hope this helps; Amazon carries both large and small JIS Vessel screwdrivers and the other brands I mentioned, including some nice long and extra long small screw and larger drivers as well.

[Sal Santamaura]

The screwdriver in this image looks like a "Vessel" brand tool and it may have Japanese Industrial Camera Screws JICS aka simply JIS, which are a cross-point (+) like a Philips, but designed to stay in the screw-head, without the cam-out design feature of the day to day Philips so be careful no to wreck the screw-head or better yet, buy a JIS driver or file the tips down on the Philips so it is more like the JIS tools.

When sunk in wood, such as that camera, there is no a lot of room for error.

This is especially true if you are working on Small and Medium Format lenses and cameras, etc.

Vessel 0,00,000,0000 cross-points are JIS and come in singles and sets, and while I'm at it, Wera slotted screwdrivers are a slimmer blade than Wiha Brand, I have both, and a few PB Swiss slotted drivers. Even Jeweler's flat screwdrivers can be too thick a blade (which surprised the heck out of me) so if buying locally, beware you might want to return them if they do no do the job.

Remember, unless it's listed as a JIS cross-point, it's likely a Philips head tool, which are used in German cameras, etc.

I hope this helps; Amazon carries both large and small JIS Vessel screwdrivers and the other brands I mentioned, including some nice long and extra long small screw and larger drivers as well.

While the screws on some other Japanese cameras I've worked on required those thin-blade drivers, adjusting screws on both my 5x7 and Whole Plate Ebony cameras are compatible with Phillips screwdrivers.

Ironically, screws on both my Phillips cameras are standard slotted types, not Phillips versions.

[Drew Wiley]

There have been all kinds of cross-pattern configurations. Other than the miniature versions, sharp-pointed cross drivers and matching screws also exist under the Frearson category as well as Posidrive; a Phillips screwdriver won't work properly for either; and there is even more than one type of Phillips per nominal number size. So far, all the miniature screws I've encountered on my own camera gear have been acceptably matched to Wiha drivers, except for some very thin slots on somewhat larger screws requiring more width and torque than a jewelers' style screwdriver can accommodate, for which I ground thinner the tips of electricians' drivers. But the potential variety gets way more complicated when it comes to power-driven fasteners, which fortunately, wouldn't make sense on anything delicate like a camera anyway. I carried quite a few specialized German drivers and screws back in my distribution days, while an importer down the street had a stunning selection of Japanese hand tools and fasteners. There was also a superb industrial fastener house in the same neighborhood. But I have pretty much everything I personally need for long-haul camera maintenance stashed away in my own shop.

[tgtaylor]

The tolerance between the rear standard and the bed it travels on is too great. It is not possible to bring all tolerance at the point of manufacture to a zero tolerance since then the rear standard would be flush with its bed and “stuck” in place. What is neded is a mechanism to bring the tolerance to zero once the back has been brought into place. My Toyo MII exhibits a similar situation when extending the front standard. In order to move the standard on its stracks it is necessary to unloosen the lock down knob which is dead center with the lock-down plate and standards center of gravity. This necessarily results in a slight tilt of the lens plane (usuall down with an installed lens) but is easily corrected for by simply tighting to lock down knob until the lens plane is perpendicular with the rear. There is no such mechanism visible on your Ebony.