During Covid I began to restore an old Process Camera that had been decaying in a neighbor’s garage. I moved the camera to my garage during the summer of 2019. This was a project that I thought would take years (before Covid). It took me a few months instead. I stripped the layers of paint from the wood, cleaned and repaired the damage, sanded, stained, and applied polyurethane to it. I taught myself how to make a bellows, and strapped the camera to an old kitchen cart that my parents gave me. I made a reducing back for it, and use my 8x10 camera back to make images. The ground glass, that it originally had, measured 14x14. Eventually I’d like to try making very large images in wet plate.
From time to time, I need something that I either can’t find, or can’t afford. It feels easier for me to construct this item to fit my needs, instead of spending a lot of time searching. An example of this, is making a box to mount a Packard shutter on the outside of my 8x10. Another example is constructing a bellows. I know none of these solutions are perfect, but they all work and I understand their limitations. Here are images of these projects.