# In the pipe-line



## IanG (Dec 10, 2016)

I bought this unknown camera on Ebay for £30 with a lens and tripod, it's actually an early Gandofi.







The lens and Compur shutter were on a dreadful home-made lens board, the camera had been a display piece until the bellows fell to bits. The lens & shutter are useless, no shutter blades and the glass extremely poor condition. 

One front brass strut (the one you can't see in the photo) is broken with a piece missing but I have brass of the right era (alloy) to make a replacement. The bellows aren't aproblem jsu time consuming 

Then there's this other Ebay steal £50 - a 12x10 camera.











An un-named 12x10 camera, the bellows were mouldy and had come apart, that looked far worse than the reality, it looked like they had rotted through but in fact they had just parted at the glued seam. Second picture is with my first restoration a Houghton's Quarter plate Victo.

I have some 12x10 plate holder  that luckily fit, very little restoration is needed I re-glued and cleaned up the bellows and made two new lens boars.

I guess I have a backlog of 8 maybe 9 wood & brass cameras of my own still to restore and an equal number of early reflex cameras, Kershaw Soho Reflex (5x4) a few TP Ruby Reflexes, a Dallmeyer Press, a Compact Graflex (postcard sized) which I'm converting to shoot 9x12.

Mean while I've 30+ TP shutters in bits, 9 for others the rest my own be nice to get back to cameras 

Ian


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## dxqcanada (Dec 10, 2016)

I find the same satisfaction with both fixing cameras and actually using them.

... I have yet to tackle a LF wooden camera restoration, I haven't been lucky enough to grab one cheap.


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## IanG (Dec 10, 2016)

Apart from my second LF camera a mint Wista 45DX bought around 1986, I've restored every thing else 

My first LF camera was a Whole plate/Half p;ate/5x4 De Vere momo-rail, I had bag bellows made but had to make the plates they fitted to, hen restored the camera, it's a learning curve.

It's a gamble, I have spares, you take chances, but really only if you think you can maybe match bits and pieces.

Ian


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