Bellows: stiffeners

200 stiffeners are ready

This was the biggest work with the bellows

Next, drawing stuff to the sheets with white pencil, and then lots of glue

ps. also ends of the stiffeners must be cut to 45c angle....... 400 of them... fuck this :D

Bellows, part 1 done

READY

There are strips.. a bit more work with scissors and we're ready to build some bellows

..the drums... in the deep..

Can't cut them all once, my wrist aches...  total of 100 meters of polypropylene to be cut... it's so painful...

Bellows pain!! :)

Previous picture was about plans, this is about pains.

I'm now confronting a problem of hard work, cutting the stuff was not so fun at all and it requires a lot of strength to be used so we'll see how much of this shit I'm gonna ... rraargh

Plans for bellows

My evil plot of building the bellows is materializing on every breath you take

I made a plan so accurate that you can give it to a sophisticated machine in a factory and you get billion of these bellows

Well it's only a plan of principles; the decisions of the Z or D will be made when I have taken over the kitchen table with my bellows stuff

Ready to build BELLOWS

It was just amazing... on my way home from university, I decided to do a little round in a little town.. there was this fabric store, built in an old, red-bricked factory.

And there was this perfect darkening fabric and they sold a "scrap piece" (230cm x 145cm ?!) with only 20 euros.

Of course, I immediatily bought also glue.

We now have everything we need to build the bellows. Maybe I start doing something tomorrow.

Pics

I painted these pieces today. It just happened.. they're black now

The sheet of the stiffener material is quite big (it's on a bed and the piano is 88). You can see throught it but there's still cover plastic. Gotta cut it soon..and again, in your hands, it FEELS expensive, but it was not very...

Made some planning of the strips in 3D, but I eventually decided to do it the same way I did my first bellows, it works fine and looks OK as long as I do this new one with way more accuracy.. NOT gonna cut 5 different type of strips etc. There will be only one type of strips. There will be no room for accidents or my ADHD.

 

The hanger device: ready!

First: the strip material I previously wrote about. It sure is great. You can cut it with scissors. Fantastic. Soon I'll start cutting; the bellows are lacking only the darkening fabric and enough glue.

Went out and finished the hanger device.

You see how rusty and shitty metal transform into shiny pieces

 Then they transform into a hanger device. It's so funny to use that word - hanger device. What a stupid term I have made.

 The "device" in action. I'm pleased to it. It's sturdy and pretty fast to adjust. Knobs aren't supposed to be that long, there's gonna be shorter ones. I'm not sure if there will be 4 of them, I can try it with 2.

Also, I decided to paint the rails and the hanger device matt black, should make them look prettier. That shiny look of sanded metal won't last long.

Strip material found!!

Please forgive me, I get exited and write all sort of things in this "English" of mine

I found material for bellows' strips!

Earlier, I was talking about "Yeeah it's 0.28mm, yeah it's good, yeah is it too thick" .... bullshit. This polypropylene is 1mm thick.. the sheet's 2.5m3, prizing 16 euros  / m3 so this stuff was, maybe expensive, but I think it is CHEAP.

I'm now really into making bellows that last for LONG time. I don't know how long; is it 5 years, 10, 20, 50 .. ?! No idea. But using polypropylene as strips, it should be resistant for moisture; during years, I believe moisture may cause some damage if paper or paper-related materials are used.. this is only me thinking, of course. So using plastic, that is really elastic, the strips are NOT the weakest part of the bellows. Perhaps the fabric will start to crack in the corners. 

I really cant make this sheet to crack, even hammering it won't do anything, and you can freely bend it, but as I believe, inside the bellows, between 2 layers of fabric, glued together, it MUST be rigid. I can now make the strips thinner, ... previously I planned that their width would be 3 cm, but perhaps it could be 2.. 3cm would mean total thickness of the strips, when bellows are collapsed, simply 30mm + fabrics; and 2 cm would mean 5cm + fabrics, so these are not bad..

The hanger device

It's "hanger device" since the camera "hangs" from it - is there a problem?

 

Glue had dried in the knobs. Works fine

I started planning the hanger device. We needed something to act as an axle.. I decided to make a PROTOTYPE, so beware, the quality is NOT GOOD, but we had to see how it works before applying tons of time to it

 Looking good so far. Btw, it doesn't work that way: you just roll the nuts in the thread and then weld the nuts to somewhere. There's gonna be some tensions and heat etc so the thread will kinda be stuck there. Don't know what's the SMART way of doing this sort of thing, but I ended up with the stucked thread and violence

 The measures are good enough for PROTOTYPE

It is so.. ugly

But as we see, it works.. kinda surprising. The black knobbed bolts are M10, it's enough. The real version will have total of 8 nuts welded to the iron block to make it last longer. Only 4 would end up with bolts bending etc. Also longer bolts will allow larger rotation for the rails. But basicly, it works. This was the part I suspected the most, but seems to be OK. Also, it's very rigid!? Didn't believe before I tried..

PS one more pic: the 3D pic of the device, where you should see the idea of the thing. Pretty simple, and like I wanted: DIFFERENT

Calf

The youngest calves are watered (wtf is that a real word - colostrum, first milk) by hand. Older ones are identified by a machine that feeds them; it warms the milk and get's information of calves age (->amount of milk)  from computer

Knobs

Spring is coming

I found that black knob in local hardware store. They got everything, only problem is that these had no threads, what it's called, screw thread.. so I have to glue the knob. Also had to drill a decent hole to the knob to get the thread in

 So far, so good.

 

 In the end, I think I'll have to embed the lower block's nut in the wood, kinda like this. It depends on how the forks carrying the front and rear boxes will be built, and how the rotations will be built and so on..

Yeeaah

Blocks, HM

Here we have a stupid, romantic picture about stupid handiwork

 In this pic, you see modern heat management. I did the night checkup for the first time with my software and tablet. Gotta say it's cooool, and freaking easy and practical compared to papers, recorders, notes, pens and all.. it's also great to have a powerful led on your forehead

...continuing with the blocks; I just did the lower pieces today, nothing special. Then I decided to do some decorations to the upper pieces. I will stain the wooden parts, a little darker; like dark wallnut, so it would look beatiful if there was a little more variety in the shape and, for example, ripple engravings beneath the stain.. gotta sand little more...  you never sand enough

The structure

I was asked why I'm making the boxes hangin from the rails; why not instead make it the usual way: the boxes standing ON the rails and so on..

I said, good thing you asked since I'm now gonna have to ask the question from myself.. there's really no point in it but let's try to find it out by writing a text:

The project isn't about building a practical LF camera, that works like every other LFC (Large Format Camera) works and IS LIKE any other LFC, except that it's built by ME, with instructions and pictures found in the Internet. It's a little about doing experimental handiwork. When I was 15 and I built a billard table, I didn't google for blueprints and so on. When I started programming, I didn't go throught tutorials; I only snatched little pieces from there and there. As a programmer, I am no professional; professionals would NOT accept my code; I just attach simple bits of systems and procedures and such into a formation where they work like a greater and more complicated system (I love systems). It's a little same thing here with the LFC.

I'm NOT building a camera like any other. I'm trying to make my own! And I'm sad because the rails and the hanging style are, in the end, the only original things in the project.

ps. there's dozen of old photos hanging in the hallway. Mother asked me to think about re-photographing --> copying them. First, I denied since my 35mm film is in bulk package, my chemistry is running out and I'm not planning to buy another set very soon since it's so freakin' expensive, and the camera, well, it's a great camera, but I should set the whole dark room somewhere because I currently don't have a good darkroom, just my sister's old room with sheets on the window and red leds trying to work like WELL THERE WAS plenty of reasons. But then I thought.

Let's finish this camera and recapture the photos. Then, when we have super negatives, sized A4, we'll do, what you call it, surface drafts? Great idea..

Five things

Number five

Work is a project. Every day, at least 6 hours of work; the mininum. Last time I had holiday was November 2012. Four total days, if I remember right. What IS weekend? Sunday, a resting day? That's what they say, but I don't know.. day is split into two, the morning shift and the evening shift. 8am>11am and 6pm>8/9pm and also the night checkup 10pm, lasts 40min, also every second week I'm on call if there's an alarm during night (milking robots rules (your sleep) ) , I'm gonna have to check it out. Also, if you're lucky, there is no work to do during morning and evening, so I can focus on the other four things.

I work hard for pure milk. Pure milk is where dairy farmer gets his bread. Usually you can state things this easily but I'm gonna have to take that back; excellent crop and silage is where a dairy farmer gets his bread.. on the other hand, also situation in the market area; prices; consumers actually buying YOUR products (here in Finland people like cheaper, non-finnish products); are important.. and you must not forget that the animals are the most important constituent of a working dairy farm. In the end, there are no a single factor that makes a diary farm succesful. It's all about doing your job as well as possibly. It takes time and consumes your bRRAINNSS

Number four

Education. Every month, I have to travel about 10 times to school. It's a university of agricultural sciences. I usually try to make it back home before evening shift; sometimes I can do the morning shift and travel to school during day. It varies, and the school weeks are most hastly for me. Since it's adult education, it's mostly remote learning; so there's a lot of work to do for education in home.

Number three

 Programming a software for heat management in our dairy farm. Since my dad decided to get a tablet PC for this stuff, I'm now in great pressure to complete the software. It makes things easier. When you have a quarter thousand of animals of which breedings you must supervise, you'll soon be messed up with papers, calenders, notes and such. The night checkup is the most important heat management event; that's when the employer grabs the tablet PC where my software is installed in, he observes the animals and adds any notes of any animal's heat periods up and the software manages it all. It also does a lot of other stuff, it's primary subject being to manage all the messy information of the modern cowshed.

Number two

The camera project. I'm going slowly with it so my head wont explode. Also, I must study patience; it's my weakness in any handicraft I've ever done (a billard table, when I was 15; it worked and we played it a lot, but it wasn't pretty and beatiful and polished). When I do programming my patience is often greater since programming differs a lot from handicraft. But this camera, being my second camera, WILL. BE. beatiful. For me, at least. And important. My dream is to photograph me, my loved one and ones, family; siblings, our future kids, our life; with THIS particular camera.

Number one

She's the most important for me, and even if I often feel like my life's so full of things that cause stress and consumes my LIFE FORCEeeh , she's always there to support me.

Polypropylene

I've been thinking about the strips I need for the bellows. Strips are for example 30mm x 50mm and thickness.. well, what could it be. People suggested to use cardboard; paper board, but for some reason I kinda find it repulsive idea that there was paper board inside the bellows as it's body. Plus, bellows are going to be pretty big, 100cm x 50cm x 50cm, so there's some mass and requirements for the strips also.

So I found a place in Internet where they sell 0.28mm thick polypropylene sheets, sizing 65 x 110cm and price only like 2.0-2.5 euros, so it's kinda cheap when I would need 4 of them.

Looks like there's gonna be a victory with the bellows, too.

(not my pic - Etra)

Wooden blocks

At the workshop, I managed to create some wooden blocks.

The result of short period of work:

 

So we now have the train's (I now call them trains since they travel the rails!!1) upper blocks

 They are birch. It's wonderful to deal with firm, sturdy and dense wood.

 At some point, I had a little pile of wooden blocks.

This was the moment I had three wooden blocks. Wait, no.. there's FOUR of them

Here I accidentally gnawed grooves to wrong blocks. I do mistakes like this very, very often.

 In this pic the horror was already over. I just had to saw a little.

 This is the shitty and snowy circular saw, what you call it; table circular saw?! Don't know. But it's snowy and shitty. If you try to cut 30mm slice of batten out of wood, you'll end up with batten which's width varies from 25 to 35 mm. Good luck there was a good planer.

That's it. Maybe we some day have a camera.

Moving the movers forward

So I was thinking about the mover, and I decided to make it simpler and more sophisticated; so there's these two bokses, shaped with a little more effort..so the lower box will keep it's rotation because of the appendage and the upper box will have these "pads" for rails.. should be a LOT better than earlier version.

But you know how it works; you make a plan, and when you're actually carrying it out, you'll get better ideas.

ps I also like these "movers" because they remember me of "mowing", which is my greatest joy in summer.

 

(not my photo, found in internet)