First time builder - design questions

I have finally decided to get off my booty and build a camera. Nothing fancy, just a simple monorail 4X5, like lots of others. I made a bellows, thinking that looked like the hardest part. I have good woodworking skills, a full shop, lots of various hardwoods.
Anyway, a few questions.
Question 1- On some of the simpler designs I see, the front rise/fall and tilt are all done with one control. While this looks real simple, it also looks like it could be a pain in use. Should I seperate the rise/fall and tilt control? Is it worth the extra bulk?
Question 2- Some of the designs I see do not have rise and fall on the back, just tilt. I haver used a camera with rise and fall at the rear. Is it something I should include or not?

If you are building a monorail, you could build 2 identical sides (more or less) giving rise/fall to both front and rear standard and a square bellows.

I use front rise quite often, but wouldn't use rear.

To me the hard part is getting the ground glass in the same plane as the film.

Good luck!

Diy 4x5

Robert is right. With decent woodworking skills, you can build a usable monorail. The trick is to get the back built properly. I took a graflock back off an old press camera and used that.

I built an Aletta camera, which had some issues. A picture is somewhere on the site.

Good luck

Eric

is back rise/fall required ? no... but I just put it on mine as I wanted some more time on the milling machine for practice (; pix in the pix thread sticky ...

Bruce Appel said:

Question 1- On some of the simpler designs I see, the front rise/fall and tilt are all done with one control. While this looks real simple, it also looks like it could be a pain in use. Should I seperate the rise/fall and tilt control? Is it worth the extra bulk?

Click to expand...

It is a pain to use. I had them paired in my first camera, the latest model features separated rise/fall and tilt mechanisms.

Alike Nick M., I don't ever use the back rise/fall. If you build the back standard high enough above the rail, front rise/fall will compensate your needs.

Pics in the sticky thread.

G