I worked this morning to install the rear frame braces and rivets. I found I had set the plywood pieces of the anchors a little bit lower this time, so I had to use the tin snips to trim away some of the flange on the inside rivet. After that, they fit perfectly and the braces fold up nicely with room to spare.
Next up was the pin and retaining clip to secure the camera in the closed position. I cut and filed a 1 3/4" piece of the .032 brass feeler gauge, drilled 3/32 holes for screws into the frame and a 1/8" hole to fit over the pin. Then I cold worked the clip (i.e., beat on it with a hammer) and used craft pliers to bend up the end. I cut the pin 3/8'' long and taped the 5/64" drill bit at 1/4" to drill into the front and center of the camera base. I taped the retaining clip into place over the pin and drilled 1/16th pilot holes for two 1/4" #2 round head brass screws.
So much for the easy stuff. I sweated over routing out the inside of the rail for the front standard knobs. First, I let the front standard rest on the rail and noted where the knobs came to rest. Then I taped off the rail one inch before and after dead center of the knob to route out between my marks.
I had picked up a new Dremel Plunge Router Kit a few weeks prior. I thought this would be the perfect tool for this small job, so I watched some videos and perused the manual. Neither explained the fine points of the secondary plunge adjustment, so I used the brute force approach and just reset the plunge feature to do a series of four 1/8" cuts between the taped-off beginning and end marks. The trickiest part was getting just the right material to set up a fence to guide the router in a straight line along the inside of the rail. A router table would probably be the best too to use here, but I made do with what I had. I used a piece of scrap as a practice piece and a bit of measurement plus trial and error to get a fence to allow me to shave 3/16" off the inside of the rail on both sides. There was a small bit of tear out, but not too bad. I hand sanded both cuts.
Below, you can see my setup for routing, and the results.
Bookmarks