I haven't realized that it's been so long since I last built a contraption. So I decided to come back with another off the wall build.
Years ago when Mike Walker of the large format camera hall of fame decided to team up with Harman to bring to market the Harman Titan, it got me drooling. But the high pricetag was always a turn down until last week I had an idea: it's just a pinhole camera, I can make that!
So I went through the junk filled garage to find supplies. A scrap of 5/8 plywood; check. An old cardboard box; check. Some small magnets; check. A 1x2 strip of wood; check. 1/4-20 tripod nuts; check. Hockey tape; check. Flat black paint; check. The bottom of an old drawer; check.
I then sourced tools... that was a bit harder as the only thing I had access to were a jigsaw, hand drill and Dremel... but it would have to do.
I first measured a film holder and did an overall dimensions drawing in the computer. The design is dead simple: a U shaped piece of wood glued to a square one with a frame in it. So I cut the pieces and sanded the edges. Then, I measured the position of everything and cut a small groove in the front frame to make sure that the locking edge of the film back would sit nicely in there. A bit of Dremel work there. I then glued everything together using epoxy. I then cut two notches to fit two blocks of solid wood that would hold the tripod mounts. Since my mounts were of the screw-in type, I had to use solid wood (plywood wouldn't have survived the pressure the nut puts on the wood). I cut this, drilled the holes and made the blocks which were then epoxied into place. For the lens cone, I had the rather stupid idea of using corrugated cardboard... it needed a ton of tape, glue and paint to get it light tight. But I really wanted that stepped bellows look, so I pushed on. If I make a new one, I'll make a modular wood block system and just vacuform the thing out of plastic... much simpler. I then cut the drawer bottom to size, made a frame, a cone board and glued everything together.
At that point I was really tired of the project and just wanted it to end! The wood kept splintering and I kept epoxying everything that splintered... but since I wanted the camera real bad, I kept on pushing.
While being in the drilling and gluing stage, I added two rare earth magnets to the top so I can later add some sort of viewfinder to the whole thing.
I then made the pinhole. A piece of soup can lid on which I glued a small nut and drilled in its center a precision hole. The hole ended up being 0.0193" and the focal length 120.65mm, something which is really not bad. The camera now had an f/246 aperture, pretty close to what its inspiration has.
I also made a small magnetic cap using a regular ceramic magnet and a small piece of metal. The cap can be removed without moving the camera which is wonderful.
Now came the back. How do you hold the double darkslide securely in place? The Titan uses leaf springs, but I wanted something less fussy. Now entered the Dollar store and the find of the century: a cheap rat trap! I salvaged the spring from the trap, used a piece of coat hanger to make a larger version of the trap and held it all in place with screweyes. To make sure the pressure is evenly distributed on the back, I used the U shaped part's cutoff to make a pressure plate which is held in place with some wire staples. To make things more convenient, I also added some small spirit level bubbled that came from a 1$ torpedo level.
All in all, I have a pretty good copy of the Harman Titan. It's light and I know it's going to survive a lot of abuse. Best of all, I can make different cones really easily. The next one's probably going to be some sort of trapezoidal shape, it's easier to make light tight than the 24 layers of cardboard I've got right now!
So anyways, here's the completed project
