[LargeFormat] Good news. Really good news

[rstein]

Dear Friends,

     Thank you for the good wishes. I have spent an evening investigating my
apparatus ( Ohh. Ahh. )and have come to the following conclusions.

1.     The wooden double darks will actually work but there will have to be
stiff backers for the sensitive material - the center partitions of the
holders have powerful springs to push the glass plates onto the registration
rebate and they would distort a plastic film. I am thinking aluminium
plates.

2.     The larger ground glass back is removable but not reversable - ie
only works in landscape format. I shall feed the beast with 8 x 10 material
taped to the center of the aluminium plate so I can choose the orientation
when I load the holders.

3.    There are 4 detent stops for the revolving lensboard. I need 3 more
lenses. All contributions of barrel mounted bottles gratefully received.

4.    The actual camera structure is quite separate from the spectacular
stand and so it could conceivably be used in the field. It would require a
massive tripod or a wooden-wheeled carriage much like a Gardner gun or a
Mitrailleuse. All quite do-able, given the people I know.

5.    You all know about paper negatives and contact printing as such - no
need to review the situation. I have just discovered the joys of doing paper
negs and contacts from Agfa Signum II paper in colour. I initially suspected
that the back printing  on the paper would be a pain but that has not proven
to be the case.
I get clean whites and even sky tones, but a great broken texture look and
an old-world feeling to the colour. If this proves to be the case with studo
exposure - big strobes - I may have a very economical source of light
sensitive material. You can go a great deal in the pictorial line if you
have a contact size of 10 x 12.

6.    I figured out how to get the Packard shutter open and closed and also
open for focussing.

     Uncle Dick