Another thought:

I looked into making Daguerreotypes a number of years ago; took a workshop from Jerry Spagnoli at the Photographer’s formulary in Montana that was great. The process tends to dominate the creative flow. Its my opinion that when learning the Dag process, the camera itself should be a non-issue . . . .while learning. We were all using relatively modern gear and exposing 2x3 inch plates by taping them into a 4x5 sheet film holder. Worked well. The purist will be’horrified, I’m sure, but learning the process seemed more important to me and I wasn't bothered. In his personal work, Spagnoli used a vintage whole-plate camera.

By all means, restore your fine old instrument, but don't modify it—use some sort of adapter. Learn and practice the old processes, then show us what you have done!

Cheers.
Another thought:

I looked into making Daguerreotypes a number of years ago; took a workshop from Jerry Spagnoli at the Photographer’s formulary in Montana that was great. The process tends to dominate the creative flow. Its my opinion that when learning the Dag process, the camera itself should be a non-issue . . . .while learning. We were all using relatively modern gear and exposing 2x3 inch plates by taping them into a 4x5 sheet film holder. Worked well. The purist will be’horrified, I’m sure, but learning the process seemed more important to me and I wasn't bothered. In his personal work, Spagnoli used a vintage whole-plate camera.

By all means, restore your fine old instrument, but don't modify it—use some sort of adapter. Learn and practice the old processes, then show us what you have done!

Cheers.