I am scheduled to teach a workshop in wooden camera construction at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts in June. The online schedule and class description is here. It takes place over one weekend with a follow-up on the following Saturday to finish up any final details. The shop will be available during the intervening week.

The camera design is a simplified version of the roll-film camera I generally make. It will be a 6 by 6 format camera made from curved wooden laminations. Custom metal hardware will be provided.

It should be a fun project and an excellent tool to add to your photographic tool chest.

Contact me if you have any questions. kurt at mottweilerstudio dot com or 503.201.9326.

The One Minute Camera design process is moving from cardboard mockups to a wooden prototype. As a first attempt, it will no doubt fall short in some ways. But I'm anxious to get some experience with it to see how it might be improved. The wooden prototype is being made of quarter-sawn fir that was salvaged from my 1928 bungalow remodel. Fir would not be a first choice for building a camera but since this particular kind of camera is often cobbled together by an amateur for use in making their own livelihood, they often have a kind of folk art feel about them. So the reclaimed fir seemed appropriate for this first attempt.

I don't know exactly how the various penetrations into the camera will play out so I chose to build it with box jointed sides and a frame and panel top. I'll be cutting holes in the back and sides before the design is finished. Then I'll have to decide how to proceed in the final version after this one has been tested. Among things to be included is the removable processing tank for the bottom of the camera. Various ideas are in play for a ground glass viewer/paper neg carrier.

I dusted off my WoodRat joinery machine for this job. Since it doesn't rely on hard spacing setups, I varied the spacing of the pins a bit as is sometime done with historical examples of dovetail spacing in camera design. I may end up sawing through some of these to hinge off a top section of the camera.

Billy and I found a couple of additional patents for this type of camera so there is now a bit more information on historical solutions to this camera design challenge. More updates will be posted as things progress.

What an irresistible idea! I saw this a while back an couldn't help envisioning it along Portland's Waterfront Park. Just imagine the stunned visitor to Portland peering across the Willamette and seeing people bouncing along the opposite shore. Of course, who knows what we would find underneath it after a while!

At the mini-Maker Faire in Portland I met a lot interesting people including a local collector of vintage microscopes. We chatted a bit about a time when science, art and craftsmanship melded in a golden age of instrument makers that includes both the cameras that inspire my work and the amazing works of art that are the early brass microscopes. He had been looking for a new machinist to do restoration work on his collection and we talked a bit about the requirements for that work.

I later had the opportunity to see this amazing collection and, as an interesting aside, was introduced to another microscope collector in New York. As a result of that connection, I ended up doing some restoration work on one of these classic instruments.

 The subject was a very small field microscope - less than 5 inches in height. It was missing the stage section on which specimens are placed for viewing. The collector sent along a series of photographs of both his microscope and some additional photos of a complete example. The photo above shows the complete unit resting in its case. The task would be to reproduce the stage using only these photos as a reference.

 A bit of deductive analysis and measurement resulted in the reproduction stage shown above. Upon seeing the result, the owner sent along a further photo that helped to clarify the shape of the bend along the top of the springs.

 The back bend of the springs was done via a bit of custom tooling and a small arbor press. The springs were made of standard half-hard 360 brass.

Once the stage was fabricated, it was then fitted onto the original mount that hold it in place on the microscope shaft. A test fit during the operation to clean up old solder from the mount is shown above.

 The final result is pretty good after a bit of traditional chemical blackening. A slight highlighting of the edges helps to make the stage look a bit more like the other original blackened components.

Nicely fit into the case, the microscope is ready to shop back to its owner. I've done a bit of camera restoration over the years so this was a welcome variation on the typical challenges. I look forward to doing more of this interesting and challenging work.

 

I was impressed the first time I saw this work by young British design student Sarah Dickins. It seems to embrace much of what I aim for with my own work. The Alto seamlessly combines thoughtful re-imagining of a common concept, traditional materials, craft and current technology into one stunningly beautiful object. Resulting from a study of the difficulty many users have operating a traditional sewing machine, the design incorporates new ideas for both setting up to go to work and the actual operation of the machine. All I can say is - BRAVO.

Alto Sewing Machine by Sarah Dickins » Yanko Design.