** A Practical Camera for Fifty Cents [365] By C. H. Claudy

I say for fifty cents, but really this is an outside estimate.  If you possess a few tools and the rudiments of a shop, by which is meant a few odds and ends of screws, brass and nails, you can really make this camera for nothing.

The camera box is the first consideration, and for this a cigar box answers every purpose.  It is better to use one of the long boxes which contain a hundred cigars and which have square ends.  This box should be cut down, by means of a saw and a plate, until the ends are 4 in. square.  Leave the lid hinged as it is when it comes.  Clean all the paper from the outside and inside

[Illustration:  Construction of Camera Box]

of the box—­which may be readily done with a piece of glass for a scraper and a damp cloth—­and paint the interior of the box a dead black, either with carriage makers’ black or black ink.

Now bore in the center of one end a small hole, 1/4 in. or less in diameter.  Finally insert on the inside of the box, on the sides, two small strips of wood, 1/8 by 1/4 in. and fasten them with glue, 1/8 in. from the other end of the box.  Examine Fig. 1, and see the location of these strips, which are lettered Ee.  Their purpose is to hold the plate, which may be any size desired up to 4 in. square.  Commercially, plates come 3-1/2 by 3-1/2 in., or, in the lantern slide plate, 3-1/4 by 4 in.  If it is desired to use the 3-1/2 by 3-1/2 in. plates. which is advised, the box should measure that size in its internal dimensions.

We now come to the construction of the most essential part of the camera—­the pin hole and the shutter, which take the place of the lens and shutter used in more expensive outfits.  This construction is illustrated in Fig. 4.  Take a piece of brass, about 1/16-in. thick and 1-1/2 in. square.  Bore a hole in each corner, to take a small screw, which will fasten it to the front of the camera.  With 1/4-in. drill bore nearly through the plate in the center, but be careful that the point of the drill does not come through.  This will produce the recess shown in the first section in Fig. 4.  Now take a No. 10 needle, insert the eye end in a piece of wood and very carefully and gently twirl it in the center of the brass where it is the thinnest, until it goes through.  This pin hole, as it is called, is what produces the image on the sensitive plate, in a manner which I shall presently describe.  The shutter consists of a little swinging piece of brass completely covering the recess and pin hole, and provided with a little knob at its lower end.  See Fig. 3, in which F is the front of the camera, B the brass plate and C the shutter.  This is also illustrated in the second cross section in Fig. 4.  In the latter I have depicted it as swung from a pivot in the brass, and in Fig. 3 as hung from a screw in the wood of the front board; either construction will be effective.