Just thinking out loud here...

I was looking at the patent info for the movietube, and began wondering, has anyone tried sandwiching the wax between the flat sides of two pcx lenses?

Seems like it would fix the problem of glass distortion that has been mentioned in relation to using a vacuum, since the thick lenses are not going to bend the way a thin piece of filter glass would.

Does anyone see a problem with doing this? The only problem that comes to mind is that I would probably want to use coated lenses, and if the wax gets on the coated outside part of either lens, getting if off without scratching the coating could be tough. Denatured alcohol maybe?

Frank,
For the problem of the wax pulling away from the glass, do you think that putting some sort of advesive on the surface of the glass, before applying the wax, would solve this? Or if that messes up the image, perhaps there is some way to glue the two pieces of glass together along the edges.


BTW, a big "Thank You" to everyone who is working on this. I wish I had the money to do endless tests like some of you have done. However, until I am able to contribute in that way, I will at least try to continue to contribute in this way.

Finally
 

Okay after quite a while of waiting everything finally arrived. I got the wax monday night and the glass cutter arrived today.

First off be very careful about buying a circle cutter on ebay. I just emailed the guy about it, but the auction was basically false. The guy always has a ton of these things on and I understand when you are selling multiples you'd just use the same pic for each one, but mine looks totally different. The colors are different on the unit, but i can live with that. The problem i have is that the auction was for a "brand new" glass circle cutter. This one was far from new. It's all dinged up and there's a dent in the corner of the top. Anyway long story short... It does cut glass circles. I cut about 3 or 4 good ones tonight and i can't complain for 20 bucks, but be careful who ya get it from.

I'm planning on cutting as many circles as i can this week and gonna try to melt some wax and get some 'gg' made this weekend.

Frank:
You mentioned the test shots were with a thicker wax layer? What were you using to space it out for the one you used for the test shots?

In the fruitgrowing industry there is used to assist preservation and presentation of CA stored fruit, microcrystalline wax in a solution form. I don't know whether it is a solution through being dissolved in a solvent or a water emulsion.

Apparently, it dries off initially in blown air and then in the dry air, characteristic of cold storage. This process gives apples their glossy polished appearance and stops them from going off.

It may be possible to use this material and spray it on a disk in thin layers to dry off and then successively respray over the top until an acceptable opacity is achieved. If the material is a water emulsion then there should not be a problem with re-dissolving the previously sprayed layer.

I haven't seen the stuff but will be trying to get my greasy hands on some.

Spraying a coating on a disk may not confer a robust layer and placing another glass over it may cause problems of bubbles and patches which already plague the wax gg development direction.

An alternative to protecting the wax layer against dust attraction or injury during fitting of the disk might be to spray a thin top coat of clear hair lacquer or clear estapol if this is not antagonistic to the wax and does not flake off or crack.

--- Probably another dead-end suggestion but there it is.....

Justin,
I had thought of the possibility of sandwiching wax between the two condensers, but simply for reasons of having less glass to deal with. HOWEVER, your idea of doing it this way to have the wax enclosed in thicker glass that wouldn't warp is EXCELLENT! Thank you for that suggestion! Definately worth a try.

Keith,
Glad to hear the circle cutter works!


For spacers, I have used either aluminum foil strips or masking tape. The aluminum strips can be folded to give varying degrees of thickness. The masking tape is inherently thicker, and less desirable because it is somewhat porous and allows little trapped bubbles to seep inbetween the glass layer.

Bob,
Some sort of spray-on solution would likely give an even spread, but I wonder (as you mentioned) if it would be thick enough to prevent the hotspot problem. If it would work, and a layer of protective glass could be placed above it (so that the bubbles wouldn't be a problem), or as you suggest, a clear protective coating - that would be ideal.

I was thinking about the idea Justin mentioned about sandwiching the glass between the condenser lenses, and it may have some other benefits besides not warping:

- Wouldn't the thicker glass act as a sort of insulation/heatsink that would further lessen the chances of the wax melting? I'm not entirely sure about this, but it seems about right.

- The only place dust/debris could get would be on either of the curved sides of the condensers, which shouldn't matter much since the camera would be focused on the wax layer in the middle.

The following link has been posted before, I think:

http://v3.espacenet.com/origdoc?DB=E...76&CY=ep&LG=en

Just some diagrams of how the MovieTube works - nothing too complicated, and not much more in principle than what we're already doing here - the main difference being the use of a prism(Schmidt, I think) and some sort of field lens.

However, I did a Google translation on some of descriptions, and thought some of these details may be of use:

Sounds like a beeswax mix and elastic rubber bands around the junction of the two pieces of glass to keep the wax in until it sets? Very cunning. Under pressure, the molten wax will force past the rubber until all bubbles are exhuasted, then the rubber will settle back and stop air from getting in. I wonder why I didn't think of that?

Wait, I'm not understanding what you're saying Bob -- would you be so kind as to explain that a little more clearly?

Thinking it over, is what you mean -- the glass is pressed together with very thing rubber spacers between the two pieces, whereby the wax and bubbles exit the space between the glass, then the pressure is released slightly and the wax cooled?

Thanks,

- jim

My assumption and imagining is that they set their two pieces of glass apart, maybe with shims, maybe in a jig, at exactly the correct spacing between them then wrap a thick elastic band type thing around both glasses to cover the gap all round, pre-warm the whole assembly, then inject melted wax through the band, maybe with a special syringe even though the rubber band itself in the manner drugs are administered into intravenous drips through a membrane. There would have to be be enough wax injected with enough vigour to force all airbubbles out of the gap with the surplus wax out past the rubber band. Once all the bubbles were gone, then the syringe or injector is withdrawn. The rubber settles back and stops any air creeeping back in. That's my theory. The rubber band is in effect, the walls of a mold around the outside of the gap between the glasses. So far, attempts by AGUS/ALDU builders seem to have concentrated on dipping the edge of or the entire two pieces of glass in molten wax and relying on capillary action, gravity or mechanical closing of the gap between the glasses submerged under the wax to fill the gap and push bubbles out.

That sounds like something to try. The concerns are where to find a syringe that could hold the hot wax, and what kind of rubber to use. The thing mentions India rubber, but that may be a generic term (like "India ink") that means regular/general rubber.

Also, I wanted to let you guys know that I tried applying the wax directly to the space between two condensers. Of course, I still had the same problem with bubbles since I used the same procedure, but when I went back to do the hair-dryer-melt-and-squeeze (I sometimes do this after I have the wax inbetween the two pieces of glass to get a thinner layer and try to move air bubbles to the outer areas.), I could not get the wax to melt. I stood there for quite some time, trying to heat the glass enough to melt the layer of wax. At best, I could aim the hot air at the sides and start the wax melting at the thinner parts of the lens, but the thickness of the condensers insulated the wax. So that was proof for me of the insulating/heatsink benefits of the condensers.

NOW I want to try the 'injection' method with the two condensers and rubber.

Okay so I made my first sorta complete wax gg tonight. I used a folded over piece of foil. It worked somewhat, but I got a big ait bubble. I didn't get to use the vacuum chamber so that'll be tomorrow's test. I just have a quick question for you guys. How do you guys clean the outside of glass? I scraped the outside lightly with a razor, but i can't get it completely off. Is there some type of cleaner or something that'll easily remove the wax from the glass?

"Preen, the great unstainer". I don't know what you have in your part of the world. It is a trigger spray which you use to give grubby shirt collars and slobbered pizza sauce the treatment before you put your white business shirt in the wash.

Razorblade the glass first but only if it is glass. Plastic will scratch. Then spray with Preen, then rub the stuff around. The wax doesn't really dissolve all that well but it comes off and remains mobile.

Then rub over with neat hand-dishwash detergent, take it to the sink and wash off in water. Don't swim the disk but hold it above an empty sink under running water - and it is best if the water is cold.

Dry off then rub over with methylated spirit. I think you folks call this stuff wood-alcohol. Polish off the streaks and you have a clean groundglass.

(Then as you survey your wondrous creation, - the most pristine and well balanced wax composite agusdisk in the entire universe, it slips from your careful grasp of the edges and tumbles wild and free in slow-mo earthwards towards the hard tiled floor. You attempt an intercept with your foot but too late. It now looks like the windscreen in a car wreck.)

I use rubbing alcohol and optical cleaner with disposable optical whipes whenever I do it. With a razor, of course.

Bob -- that last paragraph was great :D

- jim

Precautions:

The condensers will need protection against sudden temperature change or they will shatter - bigtime. They also need to be warmed in air. If you take them out of warm water, the water will chill, = crackkk - bigtime.

My personal preference would be to have the working environment as warm as remains reasonably comfortable, prewarm the condensers slowly, already assembled, slightly apart, but with a spacer shim and rubber band already in place, fill a pre-warmed conventional diabetic syringe with wax, poke it through the rubber band and squeeze the wax into the gap. If the needle point can be placed near the center, probably all the better. You might have to use several syringes at once to get adequate overflow past the rubber band to carry the air bubbles out. There may be vetenary syringes of larger capacity and might also be made of metal.

I don't think the wax needs to be over water boiling point to be fluid but microcrystalline wax may be a different story which might be why the movietube people use the beexwax blend to bring the melting point down and reduce the risk of injury to the glass.

The rubber band itself might conveniently be made from a cycle tube and cut wide enough to give a good coverage of the gap. Cycle tubes seem to remain made of the original stretchy rubber whereas motorcycle tubes and auto tubes seem to be made of the less stretchy butyl material. I know these are now useless for making gings (= old aussie for "slingshots" or "shanghais".).

My guess is that the condensers would have to be positioned to that the gap is horizontal, not vertical, which would reduce the tendency for the bubbles to want to work against the flow to find the highest point.

To preserve stable temperature I would recommend the workshop surface be the reverse side of a ceramic tile on the bottom of an electric frypan on low setting. There would need to be something lese to protecthte glass from scratching. The rough surface of a piece of unpolished undyed leather would probably be adequate. Once the wax is injected, put the lid back on and turn the frypan off to cool down slowly. If it is a glass top lid all the better to slow the cooldown.

adapter pictures
 

Keith and others,

I have uploaded some pictures of my adapter. You guys can check them out here:

209.214.235.122/mwtest

( "adapter_pic_01.jpg" through "adpater_pic_05.jpg" )

The primary parts are:
- 35mm lens (f1.8)
- PVC housing - 2"
- metal 'telescoping' piece from a telephoto lens or something (used to change flange-focal distance)
- 2 condensers (from glasses used in fly-tying)
- Wax layer between two circular glass pieces from 99 cent picture frames.

As you can see, it is held together by masking tape, which isn't visible once the main works is inside the PVC.

With this setup I am getting a really even picture, with no color separation, vignetting, hotspot, grain, etc...

That looks nice! Are you saying this works very well?

Looks like you have a very interesting setup there! Can you explain what all the parts are and what you are doing?

Frank,
What monitor size are you watching the picture? How are you connected to that monitor (what cable)
The stills are not from footage, right?
The inside looks very nice, but sharpness and vigneting are hard to tell since they are subject to possibly soft focus and uneven light in the room. Go for infinity (trees) and guaranteed evenly lit BK (sky)
It would be good to see a pic of the trees and sky with and without condenser lens, see the diff the condenser lens makes vigneting wise.

Well, I started with the ground glass (using various grit sizes, down to 5 micron) made some spinning adapters, etc... and the microcrystalline wax adapter is the best thing I've used. Everything's a tradeoff though - with static you have to keep it really clean.

The layout is like this:

35mm Lens --> metal housing --> condenser --> wax screen --> condenser --> PVC housing

The metal housing is two metal pieces - one smaller than the other, allowing you to 'collapse' them, or in my case, slide them to adjust focal distance. As mentioned, these came from some other lens.

The PVC housing encloses the wax screen and condenser, and also acts as a coupler because it fits snugly over the macro lenses on the GL2.

I have since removed the front condenser and can't really tell a difference in the image. I don't have a hotspot problem or vignetting to deal with either way. This is due to the rear condenser and the properties of the wax, I think.

I'm monitoring the footage with the little LCD screen on the GL2. It is pretty difficult to be sure you're getting the sharpest image, especially since I usually shoot with the Custom Preset feature with desaturated colors & sharpness turned all the way down (so even if an object is in focus, it still appears a bit blurry). I do this so that I can later take the footage, uprez it without bringing through a lot of the compression artifacts that come with electronic sharpening and bright colors, sharpen it, adjust color curves, etc...

I'll try to get some comparison frames. I will say that just using a microcrystalline layer with no condenser has given me pretty acceptable results. This is relative to the thickness of the layer, though.

Hey everyone...

I've been dragging my feet working on the latest go at a good, clean microwax sandwich for a variety of reasons -- biggest being I'm just taking a break from building things and doing other stuff (like building websites).

I'm still excited by the project and was wondering if those of you doing the bell jar or injection processes have things to share? Good things I hope :D

Meanwhile, today my girlfriend brought me along to a sculpture shop in Manhattan. While she was sifting through the piles of scrap marble, I spoke with guys there who do prosthetics and molding on the topic of our little project. After describing our submersion process and getting the arched brows from the group, I asked their advice. Here's what they suggested:

First, get a shallow metal pan and heat it with the filters in the pan. Setup your foil or tape spacers on one piece of glass before you do, so you can put the sandwich together when the time comes to do so. Heating the glass prevents the wax from semi-solidifying on contact -- this creates "stratification" in the wax layer, little lines that separate slight temp changes in the wax as it hits a given surface.

At the same time, melt your wax to liquid, being careful to not over heat it to burning or bubbling.

Once the glass pieces are significantly heated and the wax melted, pour a small amount of wax ontop of one of the glass pieces -- just enough of a drop at the glass's center and be sure that the drop is a solid shape.

With heat resistant gloves on, grab the other piece of glass and press it ontop of the wax. Get something like a flat piece of wood and put it ontop of the glass/wax sandwich and apply some consistent weight ontop until the wax solidifies.

__________

I marveled at the simplicity of the setup, because I'd figured this would create bubbles when I thought of it a while back. The guy basically looked at me and said "It shouldn't. I do a lot of prototyping and use this technique all the time. You should be able to squeeze and bubbles out with the wax -- the challenge will be in not squeezing out too much wax, but it seems like you've got that figured out. Submersing the glass entirely is a big waste of time and presents a greater risk of ruining the whole setup."

I came home with the parts to follow-up on this and will likely give it a try tomorrow. Wish me luck.

- jim

good luck!


filip

Simple solutions are sometimes arrived at via a much complicated path. Maybe this has been one of them.

Well, the good news: no bubbles, quicker setup and cool down times, less wax used.

The bad news: inconsistencies mar the wax layer -- it looks as if there's smudges and swirls within the layer itself and, as I worked using latex gloves the whole time, I'm at a loss for guessing as to their source. I tried multiple goes, with and without pressure placed ontop of the sandwich, all on level surfaces.

I give up on the wax. Good luck to the rest of you -- perhaps the idea will be saved by a resourceful chemist or engineer, but I think working with microwax with home materials presents too many damning variables.

Would love to be proven wrong, though...

- jim

Powder off the latex gloves? Wax consisting of more than one type as a blend separating out under pressure within a thin space. This happens with seemingly stable emulsions I experimented with. they start off great then after about five minutes there's allthese little water droplets coalescing out of the emulsion. The local pharmacist defined this process as "cracking".

This may be why the movietube process uses the beeswax blend. I did not see this behaviour with the recommended beeswax/paraffin wax blend in which I drowned my discs and pressed them together which effectively is similar to your process as the disks were also preheated for several minutes above the liquid wax before their immersion.

I went through three instances of the process yesterday -- the first marred by all sorts of problems that I attempted to overcome in the two that followed:

Powder off the gloves -- I ran my gloved hands under water and then rubbed them off dry before breaking the tape on the filter boxes. Perhaps I wasn't as thorough as I think I was, though... looking now I see I'vegot a pair of unused filters yet, so if I give it another go, I'll use cloth gloves.

Mixed wax separating -- this has all been 100% microwax.

Esoteric notes -- this all must be done on a level surface, which my oven is far from being :D I checked to see that my kitchen countertop is relatively level, both with a "level" and also just pouring water over the surface of old filters to see if it ran off. When it came to doing the final experiment, I place a bit of aluminum foil directly on the surface of the counter, taping it down, and placed my filters directly on this to pour the wax.

Borosillicate beakers quicken the whole process tremendously. I pre-heated my filters at 200 degrees for 15 minutes in the oven, while melting the wax on one of the burners takes about five minutes.

- jim

Thanks for the update, Jim!

Well, I think I've lost my steam on the whole 35mm adapter thing in general. (Have played with static GG, rotating GG, wax, etc...)

I'm now leaning more back toward the old "shoot-with-open-aperture-at-telephoto-with-ND-filters" technique. LOL!

Jim

I was wondering if microcrystalline wax is alone in itself comprised of susbstances which have slightly different melting points which might account for the patterns you described. You see that effect sometimes with well-used cooking fat (dripping) as it sets.

Hmmm...who knows and how would you figure that answer out? :D

The thing is -- none of these problems occured at greater thicknesses, but of course thicker diffuses too much light.

I'm going to make another go of it, I guess I was just frustrated and out of gas the other day, too. I've been posing questios about the problems on chemical engineering forums, and one person responded with something that's given me some hope:

Maybe you should try to clean the glass surfaces first with a detergent (that contains very strong surfactants).

Two years ago, I was trying to measure the scattering of extremely thin layer (10 microns or 100 microns) of latex aqueous suspensions. The layer was obtained by sandwitching two glass plates with a very small cavity, and it was very difficult to insert homogeneously the suspension. This method worked great.

I've written this guy in an effort to get him to elaborate a bit, as I've got some serious cleaners here -- I'm thinking (hoping) that my problem was in overlooking a residue on the glass and another go with recently scrubbed filters might yield the results we're after.

- jim

Jim.

Here's another one to complicate the story.

Those filters are going to be coated glass??, four layers of coating overall, two layers in contact with the wax. Is there any possiblity of contamination there?

Maybe you could try using replacement glass rounds for oxy-welding goggles. They may be under 50mm OD but should be an adequate size for the gg.

That's a thought I hadn't really put under close scrutiny. I'm working with the glass I have now for another go after yesterday's tries which proved to be much better.

One thing I do know -- placing pressure ontop of the glass while the wax is cooling is a mistake -- it leads to stratification of the wax due to inconsistencies in pressure.

I got a very good looking piece of glass yesterday with some minor things scattered in the wax's surface unfortunately. I'm hoping this was only because at one point in the process the glass slipped and fell onto one of the clean faces, or perhaps because I (duh) hadn't thought to clean the beaker I'm using before the latest goes. Perhaps a more thorough attempt today will yield cleaner results.

Also -- I had the misfortune of trapping some bubbles in the glass, which I discovered after the wax solidified. It's no problem to just reheat the sandwich and push the bubbles to the edge, leaving the wax to settle and harden afterward.

- jim

Just went oldschool and ground out a WAO5 reference glass and the irony is that I think it might provide better focus than the microwax screen =O

edit: How's this for irony -- as I was packing up shop, a breakthrough occured to me. Looking over my latest glass, I noticed something that's been true from the beginning with the microwax experiments -- the wax looks near perfect close to the edges of the glass. I've always thought "Why can't it just look that good at the center and we'd all be happy..."

And then an idea occured to me -- it cools at the edges faster than at the center! This is why the wax has noticable "swirls" toward the center -- the rate of cooling must be uneven, giving the wax chance to settle in a variety of odd ways. Thinking a bit, something from the MovieTube patent came back to me -- there's mention of a special process of blowing cool air over the glass' surface -- this must be why.

So the answer is reheat the sandwich, then place it in the fridge. The glass I have now is damn near perfect! So, the next question is -- can I go thinner than one piece of Scotch brand tape? :D :D :D

I'll post footage with it soon. Maybe anomalies will show up on camera that I can't make out just by inspecting the glass by hand...

- jim

Interesting Jim! Please do keep us updated.

I shot some tests the other day and notice a few things that make me want to make another go at the wax glass.

One, the focus isn't resolving as well as the WAO5 glass, and I'm certain this is because the wax diffuses the image relative to its thickness -- the thinner the wax, the better the focus on the image. So, I'm going to find something thinner than Scotch brand tape as my new spacer.

Secondly, there's still apparent anomalies on the wax's surface, which I attribute to a combination of poorly cleaned glass and/or mishandling of the wax over time (it went through a series of reheats and chills...) People at a chemistry forum suggest I use detergents high in sulfactants to clean the glass before applying the wax.

Since the new process uses very little wax, I'm finding it possible to re-use the same two pieces of glass repeatedly which ultimately keeps cost and production times down. I'm going to keep working on refining the technique and then when it's perfected I'll post footage and info.

- jim

Wow, I discovered the concept of 35mm lens adapters last week and since i been glued to forums all over the net. This has been the most addicting read so far, and i'm determined to join the club...lol.

Anyway, I hate to ask questions that've already been asked, but i'm having a hard time understanding what to look for in a condenser filter. I REALLY like the image that Frank is getting with his setup. It's got that "projected film" asthetic, which is really neat.

Frank, you say you got the condenser from fly tying glasses? That sounded interesting so i just looked it up. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW Was it something like this? Yours looks pretty slick. Did you cut the glass into a rectangular shape like that? Does that serve a purpose?

Also has there been any success with other diffusion materials? like POC's diffusion glass? http://www.poc.com/lsd/default.asp?p...sub=lsdglassuv I can't help thinking with all the technology out there that there must be a simpler alternative than sandwiched wax.

Also just a random thought... Anyone ever played with an old bellows-style medium format camera? You can get some WEIRD and cool focus styles with it, if you play with the angle of the lens and the GG within the bellows. I'm thinking it might be intersting to devlop a 35mm adapter with a bellows like that.

Look forward to more questions from me.. hahaha!

Matt: Welcome to the addiction! LOL!

Thanks for the compliments. Really, my adapter is very low-tech. The newer one looks better but that's because it is held together with electrical tape instead of masking tape. LOL!

On the fly-tying glass lenses - I didn't cut the squares, I just popped them right out of the hard plastic frame they were in. I knew they were the perfect shape/size right away so I quickly talked my dad out of them. He originally ordered them from a Cabella's catalog.

If you go with medium format, you'll be in better shape I think due to the fact that the projected image will be bigger so grain will be smaller. However, medium format lenses are harder to come by as cheap as 35mm lenses are.

Update from Me
 

Okay guys sorry to not post in quite a while. I'm slowly but surely making some progess. I got the circular glass cutter and it works fairly well, but I'm having trouble getting the technique right. I'm planning on hitting a local stained glass shop for info on proper cutting techniques.

So far I've made 3 wax ground glasses, they aren't took bad, but I'm having problems with.... you guessed it.... bubbles. Unfortunitly i had to give the vacuum chamber back before I could get it working right. On the plus side it's pretty easy to make and I'm planning on making one in the next few weeks as soon as i can get a hold of some cheap acrylic sheeting scraps. I'll post some info once I get a new one built for anyone interested.

Other than that i'm slowly making progress. I shot some very bad test footage with some of the glass I made. It turned out okay, but far from acceptable/usable. Part of the problem was I didn't have the distance perfect between the gg and the lens.

Frank: I forget if I asked this before, but what spacing was used for the adapter your currently using?

To all those working on wax techniques: the whole process is messier than I care to deal with, but when you get to a point where you have something you'd be willing to sell, I'm interested in picking up one of your "wax ground glass" to try out.

Keith: In the last one I made, folded aluminum strips were used as spacers.

Tada
 

Okay here's some frame grabs of the latest wax "ground glass" I made. It's far from useable, but it's a start. There is alot of problems with it, but it'll give ya the idea. There is alot of grain visible in the footage, but I think that is from my mistakes in the making and cleaning and not a problem with the wax itself. I'm planning on making more this week and hopefully I'll get better results if I'm more causious on the cleaning of the glass before and after.

Below is a link to my site with some stills. I will post full rez and/or footage when i get a better one made. I just couldn't justify the time to upload more when the results were less than satifactory.

http://www.twistedinsomniac.com/mini35/

So, did anybody check up on the POC stuff (http://www.poc.com/lsd/default.asp) that Matt mentioned? I don't want to bug them if they've already had a bunch of people asking the same thing...