Re: [photo-3d] 6x13 glass plate cameras

[Oliver Dean <3d-image@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Thorpe wrote:
> 
> >From time to time, at shows or on Ebay, you can find old
> 6x13 glass plate cameras for sale. I'm sure there is no
> ready-made source for 6x13 glass plates these days, but
> is anyone cutting their own plates? 6x13cm works out to
> about 2 3/8 x 5 1/8 inches. Close enough that you could
> probably cut a 4x5 glass plate and make it work. I think
> you can still get 4x5 glass plates can't you?
> 
> If anyone is doing something like this, I would like to
> hear about your experiences.

Bob, about 15 years ago I bought Heidoscop with the plate magazine for
6x13 glass plates.  To check it out, I had a friend with a band saw cut
some thin circuit board -- the kind without holes and a copper coating
on one or both sides -- into 6 x 13 pieces that would act as stiffeners,
simulating the stiffness of glass plates. I made sure that the edges
were filed so as not to be sharp.  I put these circuit board strips into
the spring-loaded plate holders in the magazine.  

Then I got ordinary cut film (B&W, in this case, but color should work
as well or better), and cut it into 6 x 13 strips using a cutter with
alignment strips that I could feel in the dark.  These film strips could
be slid into the magazine in the dark, each one sliding over the surface
of a 6 x 13 circuit board, so that film plus circuit board together
simulated an emulsion coated glass plate.  

It worked very well, and, although the weather at the Queen Mary was
terrible and my exposures were off, I did get one nice shot of collector
George Kirkman and a friend seated at a table in a lounge on the Queen
Mary. Developing the film in an adjustable sheet film tank and
transposing the B&W onto a positive stock was a hassle.  But the result
was worth it, and it could be viewed in a classic 6x13 viewer, although
I put it into a mount that enables it to be viewed easily in a Saturn
Slide viewer, where it is spectacular.

Sorry, I don't remember the kinds of film I used, nor the developers.
They were fairly standard, as I recall, although for some reason I think
the film I used to make the positives had to be a high contrast emulsion
to make up for the low contrast I got on the scene. 

I think handling the sheet film, even with the above problems, would be
a lot easier (and probably a lot less expensive) than trying to find
glass plates, which would have to be reprinted to achieve transposition
anyway.

Cordially,
Oliver Dean

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