Angle of Kodak 2D front standard

[brucep]

Over the last few weeks I've completely stripped an old 5x7 Kodak 2D and today the new bellows have been fitted and the camera assembled except for the machining of a missing knob and making some lens boards. Anyhow, after the first few minutes of admiring my new camera I thought something didn't quite look right and I finally figured that the front standard was leaning back by a few degrees. The screws and mounts have gone back into the original holes and the brass bottom bracket doesn't appear to be out of shape at all so I need to take it apart again and either shim the standard to get it vertical or plug and re-drill some mounting holes.

Is this a common problem with Kodak 2Ds, and how have others corrected the angle of the front standard?

As I will only be using it for landscape, is it worth setting it with say 1 degree of front tilt rather than vertical?

Regards
Bruce

[C. D. Keth]

It's pretty common. A hundred years on for many of those cameras makes them somewhat less than geometrically perfect. I would set it vertical if you do anything. You can always get a landscape amount of tilt from rear tilt + front rise. If it were me, I probably wouldn't do anything. A tiny amount of tilt like that won't affect you the majority of the time and when it does, you just correct it with counter movements.

[Ken Lee]

I have 2 of these cameras and neither of them is perfectly aligned, but for that we can use a metal monorail cameras.

As Chris pointed out, in the field it's easy enough to adjust when necessary.

The core value proposition is that the camera is portable with long bellows draw and adequate movements - at an affordable price.

[Drew Bedo]

Great point Ken. That is why I still have my 2-D as my working 8x10. I got it in the 1990s when they could be had for $300. Now-a-days, that won't get you film for an afternoon.

[brucep]

After looking at it again, I decided it was annoying me, so the front standard got re-stripped and all the angles of the brass fittings were checked. Looks like it had been dropped face down at some point so i carefully knocked everything back into square and rebuilt the front standard. This time it was at a perfect 90 degrees to the base.

Happy now!

[Bazz8]

The first thing that I did when I recieved the base and rear standards for my 2d was to check the parallel between the standards
fortunately the measurement was 330mm and right hand top was 1mm out, i did see some smart rooster design a pair of rails
that were attached to the tops of the standards to lock them in any position,but do you think I can re find the picture.
BAZZ8


After looking at it again, I decided it was annoying me, so the front standard got re-stripped and all the angles of the brass fittings were checked. Looks like it had been dropped face down at some point so i carefully knocked everything back into square and rebuilt the front standard. This time it was at a perfect 90 degrees to the base.

Happy now!