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I feel bad every time I see thing like this.

Chan Tran

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Every time I see people using old film gear to make other stuff I feel sick. It makes me feel like our film gears are useless stuff.
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I kinda like it-that might change if I saw the price tag,though.
 
Look like Hewes reels, price tag guaranteed to be pretty high

The only thing that really peeves me are the Graflex flash handle star wars light sabers. Repurpose any gear you want, but for god's sake stop when it comes to vintage pieces that can never be replaced.
 
Chan Tran said:
Every time I see people using old film gear to make other stuff I feel sick. It makes me feel like our film gears are useless stuff.
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Most "re-purposed" gear is either damaged beyond repair or stuff (like steel reels) that are not rare and are being thrown out everyday. You might be over-reacting.
 
i know one Linhof technika V that become a lamp
 
As a clarinet player, I understand. Clarinet lamps are in too many antique stores.
 
I think it's a beautiful piece. Excellent design, except for the clunky, out of scale base, but that's quibbling. I didn't dwell on the price issue (stuff is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it anyway), but I'd certainly like to have it, no matter where the materials originated. It looks like a prop from the movie Metropolis. Except for the base. Grrr.

That's probably the first article from that magazine that's been of interest to me in years.
 
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I think it's cool... but not cool enough to have on my end table.
However, it makes me wonder if I should have thrown away the Hewes 220 reel I had. It had barely noticeable broken weld, tweaking enough to not be able to load past about 12 inches (and I certainly tried). Might have been a good part for something like that lamp.
 
It looks as though it still wants to be used in a darkroom because it tries it's hardest not to let much light out. Rather a pointless design for it's purpose, both ugly and barely functional (in my opinion). Hmmmm, I may have PWG (posted while grumpy).

More sensibly, using steel reels is not a capital crime. After all, these were probably already bent and unusable as few lampstand-constructors are going to pay a lot of money for new examples of something they could otherwise find in a shop junkbox. On the other hand, converting a Noctilux in to a spotlight might make a stronger artistic statement - or cause more of a reaction anyway . . .
 
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The bragging of a sales clerk in an unnamed northern Virginia camera store about converting Graflexes and Graphics into lamps, led to my posting an APUG thread condemning the store. If you want the details, PM me.

The store has degraded from selling digital cameras, to selling mostly packs for digital cameras. Just desserts.
 
down the road from me there is a house with a double bed/frame headboard &c repurposed as a garden.
i kind of like it ...
 
I saw once where someone had taken an old upright piano removed the back and made it into a bookshelf.

It looked like a old crappy piano on its side with books on it.
 
I hate it when people use working equipment. I don't mind if they use something that is already internally junked out but why use a perfectly good SX-70 to make a lamp? People do the same with musical instruments and it rubs me the same way
 
This is the third thread on this lamp issue.

No I don't feel bad. I rather give a camera another life than throwing it away.

And sparing an old camera for parts, is that a better life for it?
 
AgX said:
And sparing an old camera for parts, is that a better life for it?
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I've a box of old cameras for parts - compatible with my Sears KS-2 (Ricoh XR-7). I know it's not vintage or classic, but it was my Grandfather's, and I'll be able to keep it running as long as I can get film for it. Perhaps it's not a better life for the 18+ cameras in the cardboard box, but is a better life for me and my Grandfather's camera.
 
Kc2edh said:
As a clarinet player, I understand. Clarinet lamps are in too many antique stores.
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I don't disagree with you in principle, but when I was a high school band director, many of the cheap instruments my students tried to play on would have been better off as lamps ...
 
A lot of metal darkroom stuff is heading for metal recycling, like the rental lab in town that sold a bunch of Omega enlarger stands for scrap metal. Better to make something interesting.
For several years I used a kodak 5x7 enlarger as a corner light and then wrapped it in Christmas lights at Christmas time. It had a huge metal housing on top that looked like a large bell and had a pretty good ring to it. Recently I put that in the metal recycling bucket for pickup.
I actually think this thread was probably started as a joke. Film reels are pretty cool. There are plenty laying around in the world. Use them for something interesting.
Dennis
 
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