Filing a Leitz V35 to 25x37

[click]

Hello,

I want to file my negative carrier but I'm wanting some guidance from someone who has done this before to a V35 carrier. I don't actually care if the lines are perfect but I certainly don't want to destroy my carrier.

What's the carrier made of. I heard it was made of brass but I can't tell.

What kind of file should I use?

file inward or outward or perfectly vertical?

Will my negatives lay perfectly flat after I've done this?

Other caveats?

Thank you,

Click

 

[dap]

I have never filed out a V35 carrier (When I owned one I was lucky enough to own the factory oversized carrier so there was no need), but if memory served me correctly they were made out of aluminum. They definitely seemed lighter than brass.

I have filed out carriers on Omegas as well as focomat ICs before (both are made of aluminum). You just choose two adjacent sides of the rectangle and start filing. If the tolerances are tight for the negative locator pins you might have to file all 4 edges (see how much play is there - it is easier to keep things straight if you just file 2 edges). Try to keep the edges as straight as possible - go slow. Check with a negative regularly in order to monitor progress. After you have filed away enough material knock down any burr that might have developed and "paint" the bare metal edges w/ a marker. Pretty simple.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Seriously consider going to a machinist unless you want ragged edges (take a look at my site for examples), though of course you can always crop these out with the masking frame.

File at an angle so that the upper area (beside the neg) is smaller than the bottom, i.e. / \ and clean the top of the filed-out area with a diamond file or similar.

This should have no effect whatsoever on film flatness.

Cheers,

R.

 

[click]

Thank you both for the information and excellent advice. I actually don't want the edges to be perfect. I took a look through the LFI site and noticed there were lots of varied borders and the perfect pin lines don't appeal to me.

Roger, if I may call you by your first name, I looked at your site and noticed "China's" borders appeal to me. How did you get that particular look? Nice work too, by the way.

One thing I want to avoid is all the "grey" undefined look in the border.

Thanks for your help

 

[tj01]

Why not get the effect you want at the easel stage, rather than the negative carrier ?

 

[newsgrunt]

I don't see why you shouldn't mod your carrier.It's just a carrier after all and you can always get another one even if it'll cost you an arm and a leg. Hopefully you have the carrier that has anti-newton on top. The bottom half is pretty thin so you don't really need to do much filing. Shave a bit off, see how it looks with a neg in it. Proceed from there, best to go slow since you can't 'unfile'.

 

[click]

I'm going to try to get the feel I want with flashing the paper with room light and a mask first, if it doesn't happen I'll look and see if I can find a factory 25x37 and file it, I'm sure someone has one and someone else wants the one I have for that ultra clean look. I personally dislike things that are too perfect; drum machines and the like are just inhuman. A gritty edge suits my photography like grain. I want people to know that it's real film, that great care went into producing it and that makes it special, maybe it doesn't but it does to me.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Thank you both for the information and excellent advice. I actually don't want the edges to be perfect. I took a look through the LFI site and noticed there were lots of varied borders and the perfect pin lines don't appeal to me.

Roger, if I may call you by your first name, I looked at your site and noticed "China's" borders appeal to me. How did you get that particular look? Nice work too, by the way.

One thing I want to avoid is all the "grey" undefined look in the border.

Thanks for your help

Thanks for the kind words. The carrier was crudely hand-filed. My enlargers are Meopta Magnifaxes.

First names are the order of the day here, though some people apparently make up false names.

Cheers.

R.