Re: If I were to custom-make plate holders, would you buy them?

Apparently I missed the previous plate holder thread. My camera is
designed for 6.5 by 8.5 inch plates and I have a few holders (double
sided) so I don't have immediate desire to collect more holders, but I
have asked the same question in a Japanese darkroom mailing list a
while ago. The response there was that Mr Tachihara, who makes a line
of wood view cameras, has experience in making plate holders and he
would be most likely to accept requests for custom fabrication.

Below is of potential interest for other dry plate users.

I've looked at common names for plate sizes, but depending on the
country and era, names seem to deviate. For example, I've seen 6.5 by
8.5 inch mentioned as full plate and half plate.

When I was shopping for glass of 1.6mm thickness, plate or float, the
price was high unless I buy $500 or more of glass in one
transaction. But I found that 5x7 glass of high quality could be
purchased very inexpensively as framing material. Also, 5x7 enlargers
are common but 6.5 by 8.5 enlargers aren't (practically speaking an
8x10 enlarger is required). For all these reasons I downsized to
5x7. (My enlarger can do only 5x7 or smaller.)

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"You have to realize that junk is not the problem in and of itself.
Junk is the symptom, not the problem."
(Bob Dylan 1971; source: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton)
From: Jon Danforth <jdanforth@sc.rr.com>
Subject: If I were to custom-make plate holders, would you buy them?
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 11:10:46 -0400
> I'm considering producing a batch of custom-milled solid aluminum* plate
> holders that will fit in modern large format film cameras.  I can't imagine
> that there would be a huge market for such a thing but I wanted to know if
> any of you would be interested.
> 
> I would make 4x5 and 8x10 holders with quarter plate and full plate cutouts
> (respectively).  It wouldn't be very difficult to modify the process to make
> cutouts for different sizes (I'm considering 5x9 for myself, for instance).
> Based on a couple early estimates, I could probably sell the 4x5 holders for
> $65 each and the 8x10 holders for $120 each.
> 
> Does this tickle anyone's fancy?  I know that there aren't many people who
> work with wet/dry plate on the list but maybe you just lurk and I don't know
> about you!
> 
> Thanks,
> Jon
> 
> *I'm not sure of the reactivity considerations with wet-plate chemistry.
> Would the silver iodide react with Aluminum?  I might consider steel and
> titanium versions for wet-plate considerations.
>