Repair and/or restore

[arkady n.]

Hi

I bought this camera with plans to use it as a base for 4x5 franken-camera. It is very large, and I hope to be able to use it some time in the future for 8x10 or possibly 11x14. But that is in the future, and for now I would like to know what it is that I bought, and what is the best way of repair and/or restore it.

It consists of 3 sections
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This side has an ability to slide up and down, and sideways. Is this where the lens mounts or the back?
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The bellows are in a pretty bad shape in the corners. The middle section has a door on the side (you can see the hinges in this photo)
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The bed is about 3 feet long and at one end is broken
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I have a 4x5 back that I can attach to it. I would like to mount a 12" (~300mm) lens and primarily use it for portraits. So I am not as concerned about tilt/shift movements.
Now the questions :
1. What was this camera for and how old is it?
2. I do not see any way to focus and lock the front and back of this camera. Do I need to attach screw rod and some sort of locking mechanism to be able to focus it?
3. What is the easy and economical way to repair the bellows?

I am sure I will have many more questions. Thank you in advance for all your help.

[RJ-]

Hi,

It looks incomplete and thus I'm not certain. The frame which you have does looks like a classic victorian magic lantern (3 1/4 inch square slide) assembly or a horizontal enlarger.

The magic lantern slides occupy a part in the history of projectors; some are vertical in construction like the original Sturm projector and the later models became horizontal like yours, with the second image demonstrating where the slide could be inserted and extracted during the projection.

Kind regards,
RJ

[Steven Tribe]

I think it is the type of projector/enlarging/reducing apparatus called a "Multum-im-Parvo".

These were very much like a 3 part studio camera, but were the central standard standard had a drawer for insertion of negatives/positives.

Popular in the 1890's. I have a poor copy of Lancaster's catalogue which show 3 different versions of the "apparatus"!

The damage to the base could be fixed by cutting a small section out and replacing with standard section of, say walnut, which is available in finished dimensions. I have done this with a similar base on a Century type studio camera which is basically the same.

[arkady n.]

Steven, I think this is a more clear copy of the pages you posted :https://books.google.com/books?id=_roaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR76&lpg=PR76&source=bl&ots=y-cMumFtTW&sig=Hp9E234r7AvLKonJMIUoU29qMsc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjj3qe_zsfPAhUDKB4KHXs7DpsQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[DrTang]

I am going to bet that you can't focus close enough for that 12" lens

I bet even all racked together - it is still way longer than 12"

if you took off one bellows and the middle part - you probably could then

[arkady n.]

DrTang,

I plan to remove front (or back) standard and one section of the bellows. Remaining bellows stretch out to about 600-700mm which should give me an ability to do close up portraits. I think...