Perhaps the most time consuming part of this whole endeavor is milling, drilling, and filing all of the brass pieces. It definitely puts a whole new perspective on things when you start looking at all the little pieces of machined metal all around you. Although most of that work is automated now, it really makes you wonder how anything got done back in the day when files were the most readily available thing.

Making a hole in a piece of brass takes three steps. First, you need a center bit to drill a small hole right where you want it. For most of my pieces, precision isn’t necessarily required, so I’m eyeballing hole placements with a drill press and some scratch marks to save time. When precision is required, a milling machine is definitely needed.

The center bit is shorter and stiffer than a regular bit, so there is less chance of it wandering. The center hole is needed to keep your main bit centered as it drills out your hole—without it your bit will probably wander all over the place and will have a greater chance of entering the metal at an angle…which tends to mess up your screw placement.

The final step (at least for the holes in my camera) is to countersink the hole. This allows the screw to sit flat alongside the surface of the brass so that something moving across the surface will not bump against the screw. If this is not the effect that I’m aiming for, I will still slightly countersink the hole to get rid of the burr left over from drilling the hole.

Cutting a channel in a piece of brass is a whole different deal. This requires a milling machine (pictured above). The piece of wood is necessary to hold the brass in place. It keeps the vice from crushing the brass when it is weakened by having a slot cut in the middle.

In this particular case I attached the brass to the piece of wood with some screws, but no precision in positioning. This wasn’t the best plan, as I had to use an edge finder and adjust the angle of the vice slightly because the metal wasn’t parallel with the x-axis of the mill. A better way (which I followed on later pieces) is to cut a slot in the wood that is the width of the metal piece using a table saw or the milling machine. This way the slot is perfectly parallel to the sides of the wood piece. Then you can just slip the brass piece into place, screw it on, and guess what…it’s totally parallel. However, you still need an edge finder to find the middle of the piece—but it sure beats moving the vice around.

Here’s a view of the finished side piece. Two bolts will slide inside of that piece, and those bolts will be attached to the piece of brass that connects the base to the back of the camera. This movement will allow the back of the camera to slide as close as possible to the lens board in case a wide angle shot is called for.

Here’s a view of the current brass pieces all screwed in. Doesn’t that look fantastic?

Now here’s the next biggest challenge. See that giant wide piece of brass right under the bent piece? I need to bend both ends to 90 degrees. It has succeeded this far with a narrow piece, but so far I’ve failed completely with the wider test pieces.

Yikes. Maybe I should have been course 3?

I only kid.

Posted under Camera Construction.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.