Why cherry wood?

Neanderman · May 10, 2005

GaussianNoise said:
Seems like many field cameras are made of cherry wood -- why?

Is it perhaps because cherry

- was readily available to the camera makers in New York in the early 1900's?
- has beautiful grain?
- has some some mechanical property which makes it especially conducive to use in camera construction?

I'm guessing it has something to do with all three but, I really dont know.

Any ideas?

Cherry and mahogany were both chosen for the same reason: good stability and easy workability. Mahogany is the wood of choice for patternmaking for the same reason. The beauty of the wood is really just an added plus.

Ideally, you should look for quartersawn cherry or mahogany as that way of sawing ensures the greatest stability. Though for a 4 x 5, that would be somewhat less critical than for a larger camera.

For an excellent resource on the characteristics of various woods, refer to:

Hoadley, R. Bruce., Understanding wood : a craftsman's guide to wood technology / R. Bruce Hoadley. Completely rev. and updated ed.
Newtown, CT : Taunton Press ; [Emeryville, CA] : Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2000. 280 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 29 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 272-274) and index.

phfitz · May 11, 2005

Out of left field:

canary wood

just a thought.

Ole · May 11, 2005

A few years ago I thought of building a camera out of juniper. Then I bought an aluminium camera instead - it is almost as hard

magic823 · May 19, 2005

Bamboo

Crosscut Hardwoods in Seattle sells a bamboo plywood. It's stable, light, strong and eco-friendly. I've been thinking building a larger camera using it (8x10 or larger). My problem is finding plans I like. I have no problem with building it. Heck, my workshops full of the equipment and it would be a good project for our Seattle winters where you don't want to take your camera out in the rain.

Anyone know of good plans for 8x10 or larger cameras. If you live in Seattle area and would like to build one, but don't have the woodworking tools - I have the tools and it would be fun to work with someone else building these.

Steve Allen

SchwinnParamount · May 19, 2005

magic823 said:
Crosscut Hardwoods in Seattle sells a bamboo plywood. It's stable, light, strong and eco-friendly. I've been thinking building a larger camera using it (8x10 or larger). My problem is finding plans I like. I have no problem with building it. Heck, my workshops full of the equipment and it would be a good project for our Seattle winters where you don't want to take your camera out in the rain.

Anyone know of good plans for 8x10 or larger cameras. If you live in Seattle area and would like to build one, but don't have the woodworking tools - I have the tools and it would be fun to work with someone else building these.

Steve Allen

Hi Steve,
I live in Tacoma and am definitely going to be building an 8x10 or two this summer. My home woodshop is lightly equipped to say the least. I have a table saw, router (no router table), table top drill press, chisels and clamps. That's about it. I've been thinking of using walnut but the idea of having a strong dimensionally stable light plywood appeals... as long as it's as pretty as walnut

I sure would love to work with you on a project like this. I'm a woodworking newbie and prolly have a lot to learn.

k_jupiter · May 19, 2005

rbarker said:
Being as you're in Pleasanton, you might be interested in a trip to Southern Lumber in San Jose (on South First St. at the south end of downtown). They have an excellent selection of both conventional hardwoods and more exotic woods, too. Plus, they usually have scrap bins of smaller pieces of the exotic woods that you can dig through. I believe there is also a hardwood supplier in Berkeley or Alameda that caters to furniture makers, and might be worth exploring.

Mac Beath Lumber Co
Address: 930 Ashby Ave, Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: (510) 843-4390

Also you'll find new definitions for the term plywood. A good source for finishes and stains.

tim in san jose

Dug · May 19, 2005

I live in Seattle and want to build an 8X10. So I think we have a quorum, Steve and Schwinn. I built a Bender 4X5 about 8 years ago and have dragged it through most of the United States and SE Asia. I am quite happy with it. I bought some cherry wood from Northwest Hardwoods and built an adapter to recess the front standard to use super wide angle lenses

I want to use the Bender as a template for the 8X10, and make some changes to the back and monorail to "stiffen" it.

MenacingTourist · May 19, 2005

You guys are killing me! I would love to build an 8x10 or larger camera, but haven't found any plans really. I even have a mostly complete shop (still need a bandsaw).

If you find plans you like it might be fun to build them at the same time and share photos and progress reports. I'm in Utah but I guess it wouldn't matter where I was thanks to Apug

Alan.

magic823 · May 19, 2005

Drop me a line!

Drop me a line and lets get together an talk about building some 8x10 (or larger). I have, in my shop, tablesaw, drill press, planer, jointer, lathe, router table (home-made that I want to replace), bandsaw, and chopsaw. So I'm fairly well equipped. I've mainly built furnature (won an award for a baby crib I built).

Email me at magic@stwd.com

Charles Webb · May 19, 2005

I have built custom muzzleloaders for many years, and thoroughly enjoy working with Maple, I just wonder why it was not a manufacturers choice in the early days. I have seen several "show" cameras built of Curley and Birdseye Maple that were georgeous. Maple was the choice for Pensylvania/
Kentucky, but the less fancy southern rifles were normally stocked with Cherry. Walnut was used, but was not as favored as the Maple and Cherry on those early firearms.

johnnywalker · May 19, 2005

magic823 said:
Crosscut Hardwoods in Seattle sells a bamboo plywood. It's stable, light, strong and eco-friendly.
Steve Allen

I never knew anyone made bamboo plywood. It would be amazingly light and strong. Don't know how easy to work with or pretty, but it sure would be indestructable!
Glad to see no one has mentioned poplar in a while. That would not be a good choice. Light, but not strong and not stable.

mmcclellan · May 20, 2005

Cherry is the preferred wood of many furniture makers because of its hardness and fine grain. As a result, it takes to tools very well and is easily shaped. If it's good for furniture, it has to be good for cameras! That fact that well-finished cherry is absolutely gorgeous certainly doesn't hurt the marketability of wood cameras, either.

barryjyoung · Jul 31, 2005

Puget Sound 8X10 Builders Consortium Proposal

Hello:

I am brand new here and am so glad I finally figured out how to chime in. Since there are several of us in the Puget Sound area (Seattle, WA, USA), Why don't we consort to build a common camera together? If we could all decide on the same camera, it would be quite inexpensive. Also, it would be very easy if we divided the labor with each member making a part of the camera for all the other members. For example, with five members, member A might make 5 beds, Member B 5 front standards and so on. It is way easier to make five of one thing than it is to make 5 seperate mechanisms. Takes less time, costs less money. Some members have certain tools that would help those who do not have access to those tools, some member might have certain skills or knowledge. It just makes sense. The hard part will be reaching consensus on what type camera to build.

I suggest we build the 8X10 Vail Camera. You can see the plans at

http://www.srv.net/~vail/camera.htm

This is the simplest design I have seen for a field camera. It is not complex or terribly expensive. So let me know what you think. By the way, there is nothing to keep someone who is not near Seattle from making parts either. So if you want an 8X10 camera without having to make the whole thing, let us know.

Thank you.

Barry Young
barryjyoung@yahoo.com

magic823 · Jul 31, 2005

barryjyoung said:
Hello:

I am brand new here and am so glad I finally figured out how to chime in. Since there are several of us in the Puget Sound area (Seattle, WA, USA), Why don't we consort to build a common camera together? If we could all decide on the same camera, it would be quite inexpensive. Also, it would be very easy if we divided the labor with each member making a part of the camera for all the other members. For example, with five members, member A might make 5 beds, Member B 5 front standards and so on. It is way easier to make five of one thing than it is to make 5 seperate mechanisms. Takes less time, costs less money. Some members have certain tools that would help those who do not have access to those tools, some member might have certain skills or knowledge. It just makes sense. The hard part will be reaching consensus on what type camera to build.

I suggest we build the 8X10 Vail Camera. You can see the plans at

http://www.srv.net/~vail/camera.htm

This is the simplest design I have seen for a field camera. It is not complex or terribly expensive. So let me know what you think. By the way, there is nothing to keep someone who is not near Seattle from making parts either. So if you want an 8X10 camera without having to make the whole thing, let us know.

Thank you.

Barry Young
barryjyoung@yahoo.com

Welcome Barry to the project. We've had one meeting so far where we kinda set ground rules and talked about what the next step was (which was finding out how to get the metal work done.) With your addition, hopefully that's solved. As to plans, I'll take a look at the Vail plans. You take a look at Doug Bardell's plans at http://www.cyberbeach.net/~dbardell/ . I purchased a set of the plans. They look good other than there aren't any back movements. I also liked your mention of a Deardorff "clone" (in your private email).

I'll probably call another meeting in the next two weeks, since thing s have now changed.

If we have other interested parties, now is the time to get involved.

Steve
(ULF wantabee)

barryjyoung · Jul 31, 2005

Hi Steve:

Just let us know when you folks would like to meet. We have many resources here at our house. Metal lathe, milling machine, thickness planer, bandsaw, table saw, radial arm saw, large refrigerator for beer, jointer, welders, a huge stock of premium furniture grade cherry, barbecue, CAD software, film processing and printing facilities (sort of) and a complete set of hand woodworking tools.

We have been repairing cameras part time for many years, we both have made bellows. It is time to make one from scratch.

Please let us know when we can schedule a meeting. I work nights during the week machining parts for fighter jets, so evenings are out for me except on weekends. Also, since I am working between 65 and 75 hours per week, I may not be able to crank things out as quickly as some of you.

Till then.

Barry Young and Deborah Shaffer

Calamity Jane · Jul 31, 2005

I built my first camera from cherry wood. I was not happy with the rigidity.

I built my second camera from hard Maple and it's solid as a rock. It has become my most used camera by a long shot!

Gerald Koch · Aug 1, 2005

Cherry wood has very good dimensional stability and is very hard. In the past clocks were made using cherry instead of metal for the gears.

barryjyoung · Sep 2, 2005

Re: Camera plans

MenacingTourist said:
You guys are killing me! I would love to build an 8x10 or larger camera, but haven't found any plans really. Alan.

Hello:

Camera plans will be available soon. I will be selling the best plans ever published for camera construction by October of this year.

Barry Young

laz · Sep 2, 2005

Interestingly cherry wood is not very hard. The Janka (or side) hardness test measures the force required to embed a .444 inch steel ball to half its diameter in wood. This is one of the best measures of the ability of wood species to withstand denting and wear. It is also a good indicator of how hard a species is to saw or nail. Both cherry and walnut are suprisingly near the bottom of the scale with scores of 950 and 1010. In comparison mahogony scores 2200 and teak 3540. It is interesting to know that Brazilian Walnut comes in stronget than Teak at 3620.

I have several large old Black Walnuts on my property from which I have saved every scrap of branch I've had to trim; anyone wanna make a deal?

-Bob

eclarke · Sep 2, 2005

BradS said:
Seems like many field cameras are made of cherry wood -- why?

Is it perhaps because cherry

- was readily available to the camera makers in New York in the early 1900's?
- has beautiful grain?
- has some some mechanical property which makes it especially conducive to use in camera construction?

I'm guessing it has something to do with all three but, I really dont know.

Any ideas?

Hi,
Good, straight grain maple. It is stable and light. There is a straight-grained grading convention called "piano action maple" which is used in the action of pianos (duh) because of these properties...EC

phfitz · Sep 3, 2005

Hi there,

laz127: check the Janka rating for purpleheart, bloodwood and cocobola(SP) they should all be much harder. Beautiful wood, extremely heavy and worthless for camera building, they are so hard they would shatter if dropped.

Just a thought.

Murray@uptowngallery · Sep 6, 2005

Some of those exotic woods produce hostile sawdust. I stumbled on a list of industrial woods at a school I attended and it had notes for which ones produce occupationally unhealthy dust.

I think walnut was one. Those of you with black walnut trees are probably aware other things don't grow well under a black walnut tree...pH or other factor?

I used to do alot of bowl turning in high school and I remember walnut having the foulest tasting dust...I didn't intentionally taste it but it happens sometimes with flying chips.

barryjyoung · Oct 2, 2005

When we were machining the purpleheart, Deborah's skin erupted around her chin. It really affected her a lot. I have never seen exposure to exotic woods affect someone so much.

phfitz · Nov 1, 2005

Hi there,

Felt like sharing, I just found the perfect wood for LF cameras:

Brazillian Oak

Just received 2 gorgeous planks, marvelous stuff.

Too many project, too little time.

SchwinnParamount · Nov 2, 2005

phfitz said:
Hi there,

Felt like sharing, I just found the perfect wood for LF cameras:

Brazillian Oak

Just received 2 gorgeous planks, marvelous stuff.

Too many project, too little time.

Does Brazillian Oak have another name? It isn't actually an oak but is probably similar in grain structure right?

Why cherry wood?

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