Case Making – the future is now!

[jdanforth]

Case making is something I’m definitely interested in. However, I won’t let myself work on cases until I have actual daguerreotypes under my belt.

jdanforth – is the case made with the router sturdier than your other cases?

[Jon Lewis]

The CNC cases are much sturdier. I used to glue 1/8" strips of plywood onto sheets of 1/8" plywood to build up the case. 1/8" isn’t a whole lot of surface area for glue so these are a lot stronger though *slightly* thicker. I’ve only ever held one 19th century dag case in my hand and that was for a 1/6th plate!

edit: now I’m trying to devise some sort of routing jig to make the case halves. The CNC is great but it’s kinda slow.

[jdanforth]

Last night I tried an experiment. I’ve owned a little hobbyist CNC router for a few months now and last night I convinced it to make some daguerreotype cases!

I used 1/2" thick birch plywood and routed out a cavity that’s 1/4" deep and 4-1/8 x 5-1/8". Perfect! The only drawback is that it takes about 30 minutes to cut out a complete case but I think that I can speed that up.

I know that casedimage is the board’s preeminent casemaker and I’ve seen (and drooled over) his work first hand. Does anyone else make cases? Share your experience! Do you work with exotic materials? Machines?

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