Expensive fake lens boards !

[Randy]

I don't understand - I make my own lens-boards out of old Masonite clipboards I find at yard sales for $0.25 each - I don't understand...

[mdarnton]

I'm finding it difficult to get outraged. If someone spends $100 on what the OP showed a picture of, they deserve what they get. He would never find mine acceptable, but I don't need them to last 100 years, and I don't charge myself that kind of money.

[Nodda Duma]

Seems like caveat emptor applies here. What are the terms of sale listed in their Etsy store?

[neilt3]

All my lens boards are made out of 1/8" hardwood ply .
For thicker boards for heavier lenses a glue several layers togeather .
Backs painted flat black , fronts varnished , looks good to me and does the job .
Probably costs me about 50 pence per board all in , if that .

[ic-racer]

I'm still in the dark; are these fake Linhof, fake Shen-Hao, fake Chamonix, fake Deardorff, fake Horseman?
I once bought some Chinese Linhof-style and 8x8 Horseman-style boards, but neither had a fake logo and both performed fine.

[goamules]

I think the OP is sweating the small stuff. Cameras are user items. A lensboard is a lensboard. Not many people are trying to outfit a camera with an "original" lensboard, because most photographers would lose, break, redrill for a new lens, sell with an old lens, their boards. It's like saying you have an original set of tires on a 1955 car, or an original toilet tank gasket. It just doesn't matter.

[MikeMGB]

A collector may want an original lens board, but as most here would do, when I bought my Rochester 8x10 without a lens board I made one out of birch ply. I did go as far as staining it mahogany though so it almost matches the camera.

[Colin Graham]

Not sure if this is the same construction:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-LENS-BOAR...0AAOSwzaJX5Mki ($19)

Seems odd that he didn't glue the two layers with the grain at 90 degrees to each other. He probably could have use 2 pieces of wood and been better off than using the 6 pieces with parallel grain on the two layers.

Jeff, 3 piece lens boards like the ones in your link are traditionally breadboard-style construction. The end pieces each have a groove, the middle panel has a tongue on each side that fits in the grooves. The light trap is routed on the back after the glue is cured. If you view the board from the end of the assembled edge it's a lot easier to see this tongue and groove joint.

The graphic below is of a tabletop from Canadianwoodworking.com, but the construction is similar.

[goamules]

I've got like a hundred lens boards. If I worried about trying to find "matching, original" for each camera it would be a long, boring endeavor, for no real purpose. I make mine too.

[Jeff Keller]

Thank you Colin,

It's been a long time since I did much woodworking so I could be missing something ...

- The end caps give the board a more finished look
- The end caps might make it a little easier to thin the edges or cut a light trap since the cut would be going with the grain.
- The end caps would help prevent cracks forming at the edges and spreading inward
- The end caps would help prevent warping but that probably isn't an issue with something as small as a lens board

I think the "Chinese made" boards were designed so that it only takes simple cuts to create the thinner edges. They put end caps on to make it look nicer. Probably they are strong enough but if someone was worried about the glue failing they could orient the boards so that the camera clamped the edges which have all three pieces rather than just clamping the end caps.

However if they oriented the grain of the two layers at 90 degrees to each other (like plywood) and didn't have end caps, the simple design would be quite stable and strong. It might not look as nice with every edge showing end grain, but it would be sturdy, stable, and easy to make.

Thanks for the link to canadianwoodworking. It was interesting.