Hardware in Field Cameras
Almost all camera hardware (the little metal bits and pieces that operate the mechanisms) in the period 1870-1930 was brass. However, some cameras had nickel-plated brass hardware, and the finish of the hardware varied with the splendor of the camera desired by the manufacturer.
The
1870's and early 1880's saw a number of cameras having nickel-plated hardware.
The brass underneath was well finished, so the nickel was meant to enhance the
appearance rather than to cover a defect. Most early Blair cameras fall into this category, as well as a
number of high-end Anthony. But American Optical and Scovill stuck to
plain brass, it seems.
Un-plated brass had different treatment, depending on the price of the camera:
Lower price cameras had plain, stamped or cast parts, with little treatment other than some polishing. These pieces usually did not have any protective coating, and so oxidize over time.
Apparently
some cameras were completely assembled prior to the varnish application -many
Scovill Waterbury cameras show signs of the uncoated brass hardware partially
covered by a varnish coat.
Several
companies, including E.&H.T. Anthony and G. Gennert treated the brass parts of
their finer cameras with what was called draw file finishing.
Draw-filing is the act of holding a file parallel to the work and drawing it
towards you, creating a pattern of parallel scratches in the brass.
Sometimes, the pattern was complex, as in the example here. Such finely
finished hardware deserved an equally fine protective coating. Reportedly,
the brass part was heated, to which the varnish or shellac was brushed.
Personally, I never managed to get the knack of that operation, usually
producing a series of brush marks instead of the smooth finish that the old
masters made.
Another
feature of high-end cameras having the draw-file finish was that screws were
chosen at random to fit with their slots aligned, then filed down flush along
with the part. American Optical cameras almost always were produced this
way, as in the example. Note that on the back of the camera, the
screws are aligned parallel to the circle of brass.
By
the 1900's, the labor-intensive draw-file finish had disappeared, apparently due
to pricing pressures. It was replaced on high-end models by nickel-plated
brass. In this period, the nickel was not the thin, elegant nickel of the
1880's, but instead a rather thick coating, apparently used to cover up the fact
that the underlying brass was pretty much as cut or stamped, without any hand
work involved.
The
commercial, middle or low-end cameras naturally fared worse than the high-end
cameras in the 1920's and 1930's, as
polished brass gave way to matte-finished or perhaps we should say un-finished
brass.
In the
1850's, metallic aluminum was more costly than gold. Only in 1889 was a
process developed that allowed the large-scale production of aluminum.
Accordingly, aluminum hardware is seldom seen on cameras 1870-1930.
However, aluminum thumbscrews were apparently used as original equipment on the
rare Star Camera Mfg. Co. view camera, shown at right.
