[photo-3d] David White folklore?

[John Toeppen <toeppen@xxxxxxxx>]

John... this Ron Jankowsky.... can it be the famous 
Ron Zakowski, a.k.a. Zak, or the names just happened
to sound the same?

Any other Realist stories that Ron Jankowsky shared 
with you? :-)

Thank goodness, April 1st is over...!

Brain fade maybe, but Ron and I worked making microfilm equipment for
Bell and Howell in Hartford Wisconsin in the late 70s.  Ron used to work
down the road for David White as a tooling engineer.  John Willis worked
there too and was selling portions of his estate from his lake home.
John had many of the leftovers from the early days - slides, lenses,
viewers, cameras, camera parts - a two car garage full.  I did the only
sensible thing and bought it all.

Ron helped me figure out what I had and told me stories about the design
of projectors and different equipment.  I had  three front plates from
45s and I asked what they were.  He told me about the 45s and how they
were much more expensive to make than they thought they would be. A
particular difficulty that the said they had was machining the lens
holes perpendicular to the film plane. So, I can't say as I understand
where Illoca came in to the picture.

He also told me of how his own projector was first owned by the owner of
the Boston Store and had the handle break. David White replaced the
projector.  A condenser lens was broken Ron ended up with the
projector.  I was able to give him another lens. (moral:don't trust
handles).

He also said that the first Realist projectors did not use springs to
hold the lenses in.  I guess that it took a while for them to understand
the thermal expansion and and exploding lenses.

I still have a large assortment of lenses, prisms, and optics that I use
to build strange devices.  Perhaps some of the old slides of "Wisconsin
Sound" will surface again.  I believe that some of my slides were taken
when the camera was being developed (dated 1947).  I have some slides
taken on a rooftop of test charts and brick walls.  Frequently, Willis
would mount two different lenses on the same camera for side by side
testing.  Other times he would test his flash in his basement at home.

John Toeppen

------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOW RATE, NO WAIT!
Get a NextCard Visa, in 30 seconds!  Get rates 
as low as 2.9% Intro or 9.9% Fixed APR and no hidden fees. 
Learn more at:
http://click.egroups.com/1/937/5/_/160438/_/954782745/
------------------------------------------------------------------------