Has anyone built a LF camera in Australian Hardwood?

[Magpie]

Hi,

I am looking at building a LF camera or two (starting with a 4x5) and I got to thinking, we have some great hardwood in Australia, cedar, jarrah, black-butt etc and I was wondering if any member here had made use of them? Any ideas or suggestions?

I am heading into the Sydney Wood show tomorrow to check out the tools and timber and was wondering what to look for.

Regards

Brendan

 

[Mick Fagan]

Whilst I'm not in the league of major camera or furniture makers, I think you could do well to have a talk with Michael Connor, if he is there. I would think he may be at, or near, HNT Gordon Planes, who would be my first port of call regarding virtually perfect, wooden hand planes.

www.hntgordon.com.au

www.michaelconnorwoodwork.com.au

Michael Connor has a very nice shooting board, I saw one this afternoon, coupled with one of Terry Gordon's planes you can easily achieve 1/1000th of an inch shavings at a perfect 90° angle.

Mick.

 

[richard ide]

I am in the middle of the beginning of making an 8 x 10 field camera out of Australian Lacewood with bronze hardware. The boards I have are quarter sawn with beautiful figure. Due to limited resources, my first effort will use Cambo components for lensboards, bellows and back.

 

[Richard Wasserman]

I have no experience making cameras, but I did build my kitchen cabinets from Lacewood and quilted maple . Lacewood is beautiful, but watch out for splinters!

Richard Wasserman

 

[dogzbum]

Greetings from Townsville, Magpie.
I made a 6x17 panoramic view camera using Jarrah for the front and rear standards.
Jarrah is really nice to work with, beautiful colour and really solid (weighs a ton), the only drawback I had was that it was prone to splitting although that may have been the particular piece of timber used.

 

[bnstein]

Not sure of your level of woodworking expertise, but Australian hardwoods are ...hard. They are far from the easiest of woods to work: sharp tools, with repeated trips to the stone are the order of the day.

They are certainly very beautiful, but some have a tendency to not be particularly stable: I would avoid red-gum in particular. Jarrah is lovely and stable but heavy as all get out (as are quite a number of the others).

Dean Jones of razzle fame has done some wooden cameras: ask him too.

 

[Tony Egan]

Hi Brendan - the knees must be better if you are planning to lug around that much weight! Or do you have a few sherpas to help you out?! No camera building experience but as decking timber Australian hardwood is very unforgiving - just what you want in that regard.
Cheers,
Tony