I'm really curious why this fell out of fashion. is the fabric that much more expensive than foam? or is it just that fabric is more durable and therefore contributes to the value being retained longer, so people don't buy new equipment as much? i dont get it
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and unlike the foam, fabric doesn't disintegrate, so you can buy old equipment off ebay, stuff thats like 75 or 100 years old or more, and open it up, and instead of being met with black particulate and goo jamming everything up, you find perfectly clean, functioning stuff
i noticed this after opening up a Kodak Brownie 2 movie camera that I bought recently and seeing the inside of the film cover's lip
a close up side-lit view of the felt in the gap
the film compartment cover as a whole, showing a slot around the edges, inside which a cushioning piece of felt is located
@beka_valentine oh whoa
good trick to know about, thank you
I'm really curious why this fell out of fashion. is the fabric that much more expensive than foam? or is it just that fabric is more durable and therefore contributes to the value being retained longer, so people don't buy new equipment as much? i dont get it
@beka_valentine foam is really, really cheap (at industrial scale, anyway); intuitively we'd expect fabric to be less so. but we're guessing.
@beka_valentine fabric sucked in humid environments tbh. nothing like wet dog smell in your expensive electronics.
@pkhuong fabric generally doesn't smell like wet dog in humid environments
@beka_valentine i was talking to my mother the other day and she mentioned that in the 60s there was this mania for everything new and plastic. old things, materials, methods were deeply unfashionable.
@astrid true. but i feel like that would have more of an impact on the exteriorities. like, the casing might be plastic for popular appeal, but the interior would be engineered for function
@beka_valentine engineers are susceptible to trends too
I was reminded of this just now while watching a Vintage Filmmaker video about a Bell and Howell camera, where he opens the case and its made like a case for a musical instrument, lined with form-fitting green felt
also, while it might be desirable to use plastic (maybe to avoid rot from insects, mold, whatever), you CAN get plastic fabrics, which last a long time. i've never seen a rayon garment from the 1950s, or polyester one from the 1970s, decay into goo from time alone
@beka_valentine
Maybe fabric is more complex to form?
With foam, you can basically use a hot wire or similar to cut shapes.
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