Prototype update

Over the last week while still waiting for the gear stock for the geared focus I played with the camera pretending I was taking pictures and found some issues, the most important being too much flex in the front standard. So I redesigned it to beef it up a bit. I also re-designed some other parts to reduce the machining required to make them and to strengthen the frame. Now I need to wait for brass stock to arrive to remake some of the parts. Grrr. On the up side, the gear stock arrived and I figured out how to economically make gears, so that's a hurdle I got over. The next challenge is the gearing rack. For the prototype I used off the shelf gearing rack, but it's unreasonably expensive for a production run, so I need to find either a cheaper reliable source of make it myself.

Prototype (almost) operational!

This weekend the prototype became almost operational. It can take pictures ( I took one picture on expired Polariod 57 film), but I'm still waiting for the focusing gears I ordered last week and there are a handful of other parts still missing. The wood and brass is not finished (the wood will be stained a bit darker and covered with satin poly and the brass will be polished).

The bellows came out very nice. As a matter of fact, I will very likely offer a semi-universal 4x5 tapered bellows kit first (and very soon). It's "semi" universal because the customer will be able to choose the size of the large & small ends by cutting the ends at various folds but the extension will obviously depend on where it's being cut. As such, you may not get the extension of your original bellows. The bellows may also not fit cameras with very thin bellows because it may not allow them to fold, nor will it fit cameras with non-square bellows or cameras with belows that taper off center. Full instructions to make sure the bellows resulted would be useful to you will be provided. But stay tuned, details will follow soon.


Here are some pictures of the prototype.

Prototype update

Here are some more picture of the prototype coming along (please note that as with the other pictures, some of the parts are temporarily mounted as there are still missing parts such as spacers, re-inforcements, plates, etc). One of the pictures shows the camera at full extension, the other it shows the camera at full front raise. The other good news is that I finished the first draft of the bellows design, and I sent out the stifeners to be cut. If I get them back today, I could have a functional camera by the end of the weekend!

New pictures of the prototype

More of the prototype pictures with the usual disclaimer (the components may be rough cut, unfinished, aesthetically challenged, subject to change in the final product, parts were assembled with missing components (spacers, washers), aluminum rivets were used for convenience and so on).

The pictures are provided only as an idea on where I am with the project and how the camera will look in general. Any details should be ignored for now.