Zone VI levels modification

**lenser** · 7-Nov-2012, 22:38

I recently posted a request for a beat up or outright broken Zone VI back so that I could salvage the levels to modify my Zone VI to accommodate my personal usage needs. The Zone VI, like most wooden field cameras that I am aware of, has a front and rear tilt level on only one side, and both a horizontal and vertical level for the reversing back. The problem with the horizontal back level is that when you decide to flip the back, the slight curvature of the vial makes it useless as it is now upside down and the bubble rises to one end or the other.

Another member put me onto jbhphoto.com as a source for bubble level kits for wooden cameras. JB sells a very nice kit with a small vial level, a rectangular protective plate, and the two mounting screws plus VERY detailed instructions for the installation.

As I am hopeless with fine tool work, I enlisted my good friend and brilliant machinist, Gaylen to put it all together for me. As he is the ultimate perfectionist, he used a milling machine rather than a router, plus a slight amount of handwork in modifying the rectangular brass plate into the Willow leaf shape of the original Zone VI plates. A few short hours later, the results are beyond my best hopes.

Here are a few of the images as the work went from a great but at times very difficult to position camera, into the configuration I've dreamed of since I first used the Zone VI in the early 90's.

These first three show the Zone VI without a level on either the left side or the top (in this position) of the back which means no leveling when the back is flipped, then the kit that JB supplies and finally the protective plates after they were modified to match the original Zone VI pattern.

**lenser** · 7-Nov-2012, 22:46

These images show the vial recess being cut for the new back level, the vial in place and glued with clear silicon, the rear frame disassembled from the camera and being clamped into the milling machine to cut the new side level recess, and the completely reassembled camera with both of the new levels installed and ready for action. In the final photo, the back is now flipped for insertion of film holders from the left side if needed. The fairly slow drying silicon allows for easy positioning of the level as gauged with a precision level of some sort on the camera body.

Total success and many thanks to JB, to Gaylen, and to member Keith Pitman who put me onto JB in the first place.