Posted by mike on December 17, 2000 at 21:16:44:
In Reply to: uw camera housing parts posted by Derek on December 17, 2000 at 13:01:12:
Well. i tend towards the do-it-yourself school of thought as well.
# 1, do you have access to a lathe, drill press, milling maching, dividing head, X-Y rotary table, tap & die set, MIG or TIG welders, gold-plating kit, and can you engineer rudimentary electronic circuits?
If the answer is yes, than you may begin immediately building your own aluminum housings. They may not have the polish of say, a Gates or Aquatica or Subal, but then those folks have dies and molds crafted for their products. Having dies and molds made for such a thing as a camera housing will require a second or third mortgage on your house.
If the answer is no, then you may wish to work with the old Ikelite housings for such things as the Nikon 8008 or F3 or N70-90. They are cheap, and ports, gears, and other parts, new and used, are readily available at such places as ABSea up on Sepulveda Blvd, just north of LAX.
Just remember, that what ever you build will have to withstand some serious pressure, and stay tight across a range of say, 32 deg F to 90+ deg F, depending on where you intend to take it (Aluminum has a high thermal expansion coefficient).
My best advice is to get a hold of some used, beat to crap housings for obsolete cameras, take them apart, and reverse engineer those bad boys (look at how they go together and then ask the following question: "why did they design it this way, and not the way the other manufacturer did?".
I used to do that all the time with my dad's stuff... pissed him off to no end!
you will be limited only by your creativity and ingenuity (and access to a machine shop)
good luck