I was hoping maybe I could archive this a little. I chose to remove the original photos because I was getting so many emails about how to make a 5x12, but now I think it would be better to have questions asked and answered here so I don't have to keep recompiling all the info, and it’s here for those who are interested. I'll start with some basic info.
The camera and holders are mahogany, milled from 12/4 rough certified renewable stock, from a beam roughly 16 board feet in size. I chose large-ish timbers so I could resaw it how I chose, mostly quartersawn. I initially was going to use cherry, but the mahogany was substantially lighter than the steamed cherry. I generally resaw and sticker and wait & see how the tensions will manifest themselves before milling to rough dimensions. I handplane edges and first surfaces and use a thickness planer for overall thickness. I don't own a jointer. Everything must be dead flat and completely true, square and straight before any joinery is done. Completely flat and true and straight and square is of course an exaggeration, but barely!
The joinery is straightforward- for the standards I use box joints, sometimes called fingerjoints. The sliding carriages are mortise and tenoned and the slides are all tongue and groove. The camera bed is a breadboard, a thin board edged with thicker perpendicular pieces that provide the bearing surface for the slides. These are joined with crenellated and shouldered mortise and tenons. The lensboards are breadboarded as well.
The back is also mortise and tenoned, as is the ground glass frame. I don’t use a leaf spring arrangement, but a double torsion spring (think clothespin) attached to a swing arms on either side of the glass. The springs are hidden in the GG framestays in aluminum housing. The arrangement is similar to a graflok back, only in wood.
The bellows are quick-change using the standard thumbscrews on the side of the rear standard and sliding catches in the front. I made the bellows with fabric from Porter’s Camera...Don’t ask about making a bellows, I’ve only recently got a handle on the twitching and spasms.
The gearing is all 20 degree pressure angle, 48 pitch, brass rack and pinion. I re-bored the pinions to allow for a 3/16th inch shaft (way too much slop in 1/8th) and threaded and pinned the hubs. Pinning helps eliminate backlash and keeps the gears from jumping teeth more than just set screws. The rack is inlaid in the slide stages; on the bottom for the front and rear extensions, on top for the rear standard forward focusing.
The remaining movements are very simple, principally a single knob controlling shift and swing on both standards. The knobs are over-sized, with a large bearing surface, and each is fitted with a leverage arm for locking down securely. I mainly chose to do this because of the need for a lot of rise (shift when horizontal) and tilt when doing vertical shots. Front tilt and rise are independently controlled. Rear rise (a la Lotus) was an unnecessary complication, I haven’t used it yet in over a year of using this camera, and it adds over an inch to the width of the rear standard. A lot of the design elements of the camera were rushed because I was scrambling to complete it before a cross-country trip. I had planned to rework a lot of it upon returning but happily most of the movements are just right as is. I do plan on removing the rear rise at some point just to shave a little weight and size. As is the camera is under 10lb and the holders are about 14 oz each- the 12 oz stated in the OP was inaccurate.
The holders were made to no ANSI or any other standard, just to fit this camera. I made 8 because setup is the most arduous aspect of fabrication by far. By far. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of tooling setups. If you ever make holders I recommend that you do not make a prototype or only make a couple at first. Make dozens! :-] Make a very good set of drawings, plan everything out, then have at it. Busting apart a riteway holder is a great way to get a handle on how everything fits together. Essentially all I did was make wooden equivalents of the plastic parts of a riteway. I painted all internal parts with flat black enamel, the outer wood surfaces are lacquered. The camera is also similarly finished; all internal potential flare surfaces are flat black, the rest in semi-gloss lacquer.
I have a little micro mill fitted with a slitting saw (1/32 and 1/16 blades) that I used to mill the slots. The mill and attachments were under $300, about the cost of one holder so it was easy to justify the expense. Plus I used the mill to cut the slots for the camera as well. For the darkslide and septum I used garolite from McMaster-Carr- 1/32 for the slides and 1/16 for the septum. I ordered the torsion springs and the knobs and aluminum bar stock from them as well, truly a fabulous resource.
As for what lenses on 5x12, well. I hate giving advice on lenses. My favorite is a 100 year old Busch aplanat that most people would probably depise. But it seems to be axiomatic that wide+banquet=cool beans.
Sorry to be windy, but clearly there’s interest in DIY cameras, and it’s a shame that so much of the info out there is confined to emails and PMs. If you have any questions, please post them here. This forum has so many knowledgeable and design-fluent people, many of whom I’m very much indebted to and in awe of. When you stump me someone else will be bound to pick up the slack.
