Build: ANH Inspired Custom Macrobinoculars

Collektor

Well-Known Member
I've been wanting to do up a set of macrobinoculars for a while now. I knew that tracking down all the original parts was going to be both costly and time consuming. So I decided to put together a custom set following as much of the same design aesthetic as the original props. I set about collecting as much vintage camera equipment as I could while avoiding a triple digit purchase price.

I got lucky and scored a Eumig 8mm camera for the main body of the macros for $25 and some shipping. Its not the correct model, but the one with the sliding plastic cover. I wasn't too bothered by this since I'm going the custom route anyway. The next step was tracking down a pair of lenses to use. I got a reasonable deal on a pair of Prinz lense extensions that had the suitable look. My plan was to mount the lenses on a piece of 1/4 inch acrylic, and then mount that to the body of the macros. Unfortunately the Prinz lenses were too big in diameter and that would have necessitated a larger lense mount, which wouldn't have looked good.

I decided to expand my search on vintage cameras, and found a Bell & Howell 200EE 16mm camera that had an interesting looking front end. This time I got lucky, as the design of the Bell & Howell's lense attachment included a front mounting that had a flat base, and screwed into the body from the front of the housing. A quick test fit showed that it would mount smoothly to the Eumig body after removing the inner plate on the lense housing.

test fit.jpg
test fit02.jpg

After marking off where the screw holes would go on the body, I drilled into the Eumig and attached the lense housing. It fit nicely with no rattle or wobble. After looking at more references here on the other macro build threads, I decided to give the front end a coat of paint. After masking off parts of the lenses, I shot the whole thing with a satin black. When it was dry I buffed it with .000 steel wool to dull out the finish and reveal some of the metal under the paint. This gave the whole assembly a more cohesive look when mated to the body.

painted.jpg
painted02.jpg

As I'm waiting for a few more vintage cameras to arrive for parts harvesting, I decided to do a little greeblie work. There were two problems with the Eumig body, the first being that the sliding plastic cover had broken off before I purchased the unit, and that left a gap in the upper body. Scrounging around in my bits box, I found an aluminum bracket that happened to fit nicely into the gap. There was no real practical way to mount it to the body as the holes in it were above the battery opening in the body, so I settled on bolting the bracket to a half inch square wood piece that I placed inside the battery housing. I'm looking to avoid gluing anything as much as possible, preferring to bolt things where ever possible. This worked well enough to secure the bracket and keep the plastic door from sliding back open when you handle the unit.

My next step was to remove the aperture setting lever so that I can attempt to mount the viewfinder hood. So far this has been the toughest part of the build. All of the screws in the film compartment were pretty much frozen in place, and all but one nearly stripped getting them out. After a great deal of gentle tapping, adding oil to the screws I was finally able to get the film spool plate out of there. I did have to take a metal file to one of the screws and cut a new slot into the head of it because it was so badly stripped.

The same thing occured when I got the front plate off, both the screws holding the aperture setting lever's locking tab started to strip after even gentle pressure with a fine point screwdriver. I decided to pass on unscrewing the the locking tab, and just used a pair of pliers to bend the tab up enough that I could unscrew the aperture lever and get it out of the body. While I had it open, I decided to harvest the lense inside the aperture housing for future use. Mercifully this one unscrewed effortlessly, and I had it out of the body in a few minutes. I didn't strip out any of the remaining mechanisms, as I wanted to retain the press button function on the release knob. I gave the two screws that hold the front end on to the body a good coat of oil and tightened them back down enough that they hold it on firmly and shouldn't strip if I have to take the front end off again when its time to mount the viewfinder hood.

greeblies.jpg
back.jpg

I drilled out the rivets holding the film posts to the bracket and that yielded a few more parts for greeblies. The viewfinder lense on the front of the Bell & Howell had a huge deforming dent on one side, so I unscrewed it from the body and glued in a couple of the posts to make a greeblie to fit the opening. My next step was to hide the embossed Eumig logo on the top of the body. Hunting around I came up with a dial assembly from a Honeywell Tilt-a-Mite flash that was just the right size and depth to fit over the logo, and still allow the dial to turn. Aside from the front end greeblie, this is the only other piece that I've attached using glue. The superglue took to the painted finish on the body well, and I'm not worried about it popping off as a result of casual handling.

I've got a few more weeks before the other vintage cameras arrive and I can tackle the viewfinder and transition box.

Thanks for looking, more as it develops.
 
Update:

After studying how the lenses I have are built, I figured out how I might go about attaching them to a lense plate. My first step was to remove the metal rings on the back of the lenses. I then cut a piece of 1/8th inch acrylic sheet to use as the lense plate. After marking off where the lense mounts would go I drilled holes into the acrylic sheet. The next part involved widening the screw holes in the lenses so I could use larger and longer screws to mount them. I masked off the rings on the lenses and shot them with a couple coats of Tamiya Sea Foam green to break up the color scheme a bit.

lense plate.jpglenses mounted.jpg

Once I had the lenses mounted I decided to try fabricating a viewfinder hood. After taking some measurements for size and placement, I went about building the transition box out of sheet styrene. Once I had the transition box built, I cut and bent some sheet styrene to make the hood shapes and glued them in place. Once I had the viewfinder put together, I gave it a couple coats of metallic silver, then black and went over it with some steel wool to bring out the weathering.

viewer02.jpgviewer.jpg

Currently I'm still waiting on another camera to arrive for parts, but its slowly taking shape.
macrowip02.jpgmacro wip03.jpgmacro wip01.jpg
 
Update:

When the Yashica camera I bought arrived, I scavenged it for usable parts. I wound up with one large knob, two small lenses, and a folding viewfinder box. I was unable to get the other knobs out of the body so I settled on thumbscrews that would approximate the look of the two smaller knobs on the left side of the macros. I distressed the knobs roughly with a file to give them a hard worn look and screwed them into the body.
macrodialsWIP.jpg

I liked the look of the viewfinder box much better than the one I fabricated, so I detached the one I made and went about figuring out how best to attach the box. Unfortunately when the box was folded shut, any transition box I made that would accommodate the box sides when closed threw off the proportions of the build, so I decided I'd have to settle for a box that only partly folded shut, but had a smoother join to the body of the macros.

This also made it fairly easy to attach the box to the main body. I cut an 1/8th inch square of black sintra the same size as the box's mounting bracket. I bolted this to the body of the macros, then screwed the box into the mounting plate with the same screws that held it to the original camera. The button that moves the magnifier down over the viewing box was a light shade of brown that was too pale to match the overall color scheme, so I shot it with the same Tamiya Sea Foam Green I used on the lenses to unify the color scheme.
macroviewerWIP.jpg

I noticed that there is a tiny gap between the frame the box mounts to and the lid, which gave me the idea that I could fabricate a small plastic part that would hold a graphic sandwiched between a couple sheets of clear styrene. After measuring out the dimensions I would need for the part, I worked up some custom graphics for the part. I based the design on the bantha images from ANH in terms of the image frame and markings. In the ANH graphics, there are numbers on both sides of the bottom, one reading '9999' and the other '39750' I believe. I decided to replace those with 1138 and 2187 respectively.
MacroViewscreen imagesALT2.jpg


The two small lenses from the Yashica were able to nest perfectly in the lenses of the Prinz extenders I used for the main lenses. Both were epoxied in place and this helped fill out the main lenses and added additional detail to the lenses.
macrolensesWIP.jpg

Then I bolted a belt clip to the bottom of the macro body. I have no way to cut steel or heavy aluminum in my place so I found a heavy duty holster clip that was black powder coated and used that instead. After it was attached I distressed it with a file to match the overall look. Its bolted into the edge of the bottom lid where the metal is nearly an 1/8th inch thick, and I don't feel that it'll tear loose. The clip is snug enough to keep them attached to my belt, though I wouldn't trust it too much as the clip is only about 3 inches long. But then these are intended for display and not cosplay its not a big deal.
macrobottomwip.jpg

I have a leather wrist strap that came attached to the Eumig on the left side with a screw knob. After I get the mystery box attached on the right side, I might consider mounting the wrist strap as a bit of additional detail. So far I'm pretty satisfied with the way this build has evolved and progressed.
 
Update 12/21

After letting the macros sit for a while I found I wasn't as satisfied with the build as when I first finished. I acquired another Eumig of the same model with an intact battery compartment door, and set about reworking my build. I found a set of lenses that had a better look to them, although they're smaller than what they should be. I rebuilt the lens plate and mounted the lens screw rings into it, which allowed me to remove the lenses as needed. After that I reexamined the viewer hood, and came up with a better way to make a transition box that would allow the viewer to open and close. Trooper was kind enough to supply me with a casting of the mystery box. Even though the actual screen used part has been identified, I didn't feel the need to get that accurate on what is a 'inspired by' build. I've got a correct model Eumig on the way, and I'll be going for screen accurate with that one. For the time being, I'm calling this build done.

macrowip new (1).jpg
macrowip new (2).jpg
macrowip new (3).jpg
macrowip new (4).jpg
 
This thread is more than 6 years old.

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

  1. This thread hasn't been active in some time. A new post in this thread might not contribute constructively to this discussion after so long.
If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top