Went to a show opening this weekend at www.dedeeshattuckgallery.com (beautiful area to be on a summer afternoon) of photos by Kipp Wettstein, on the theme of water use in the west. Large format color work, much of it made with highly portable 4x5 or 8x10 cameras he built himself. Photos here; follow the links to "camera project - previous editions" to see some of the interesting machine work.
interesting cameras--- he used a HELL of a lot of aluminum to get to the cone shape though. Poor machining time use. Could have made a pyramid of plate and made it faster, easier, and with better coverage.
I really like the black carbon ones. Remind me of things of the future back in the 50's.
Jeff Searust, I guess he's a photographer first, not an engineer. Your right, a fabricated aluminum body would be faster and easier to make. I assume though, that the aluminum was scrap, so it really doesn't matter. In any case, they are really unique looking cameras.