A cozy way to make LF lensboards with complex design

[eumenius]

Hello friends,

today I found a simple way to make good quality lensboards for Cambo (and probably many, many others) view camera. My friend asked me to help him, and I did my best. As you know, those boards have some precision-made grooves on the film side, that are so difficult to make at home, without special tools. I took just a sheet of appropriate thickness aluminium alloy, made a contour trace of lensboard on it, a hole for the lens and the alignment notches at its bottom. It was not too difficult to cut it out with an jigsaw. Then I took a sheet of good thick solid cardboard, the same thickness as the depth of the grooves, and traced and cut two corresponding groove-forming pieces out of it. I glued them on the lensboard to make right grooves between them with strong contact cement. Then I painted the whole assembly, shaped exactly like brand Cambo lensboard, with Krylon Ultra-Flat Black Paint twice, from spray can. In an hour it dried, and was ready to use. In my eyes, it's much much simpler and cheaper to make grooved light traps on lensboards this way instead of precision machining. I hope this will help people to make their own boards from any material for any camera, wneh this approach is possible.

Cheers from Moscow,
Zhenya

 

[MenacingTourist]

Thanks Zhenya. I'm going to give it a try.

 

[eumenius]

Yes, this way it's easier and faster, though not as permanent - but usually the lensboards are not subject of, say, heavy rain or other things that would peel away the cardboard with glue on such a big area!

 

[barryjyoung]

You mean you guys don't have an underwater housing for your Cambos?

 

[rbarker]

Great idea for quick-and-easy metal boards, Zhenya.

Rather than buying those expensive commercial boards, I make my own out of laminated hardwoods, and use an $800 shaper to cut the light traps. I've saved almost $30 so far.

 

[eumenius]

Great idea for quick-and-easy metal boards, Zhenya.

Rather than buying those expensive commercial boards, I make my own out of laminated hardwoords, and use an $800 shaper to cut the light traps. I've saved almost $30 so far.

Oh, I think this idea can be used in a number of applications, and if you lucky Western guys can buy whatever you need off Ebay, here in Moscow it's all different! And the cameras are different, so... but why your shaper is so expensive? A model knife is more price-conscious a choice, I must say