I have been following this thread for the mechanical re-creation of an XPan camera. It seems like the most often noted of Zeno's Paradoxes, the one about approaching the wall by halves. Each approach is half that of the one before it. In practical terms you will get awfully close to the wall but never there. And so it is with all the attempts to jury-rig an existing camera into an XPan. I applaud the inspiration that drives some of the folks working on this project and appreciate their frustration.
The problems I see is that the finished product is not too reliable and that the medium is film. Film is getting rarer and more expensive. Most of the shooters I know I buying a lot of expired stock when they can and new when they must. This does not seem like it will get better.
I have not used the XPan but if it is HB it is probably pretty good. The color is done by the chemists who make the film and who make the chemicals to process it. The image is the lens and HB is usually pretty good about this. So even while the film images are good or OK now they probably will not get any better. They will get worse. So other than the fun and therapy of making a mechanical jury-rigged XPan it looks to me a problem of diminishing returns.
I know some folks enjoy chemically based imagery, analog. There is a fellow here in town who explores the old palladium and platinum prints and some other 19th century techniques. But this is not practical for most of us. And film is getting less practical. So we are all left with digital except for a few. So the remaining digital solution, the other fork of this pursuit, is to have a camera with the software to do this. Digitally it is simple subtraction, chopping off the tops and bottoms of the sensor images. In-camera or in editor, easy-peasy.
Granted there is not the same satisfaction when doing the XPan with software but on the positive side you can be sure of getting that image every time you press the shutter. As my mechanical skills are minimal I will take the software route rather than the hardware one. But I will still follow this thread because I would iike to see what the board members are creating.