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I'm starting a partial restoration of this beater and can't identify the top crossbar on the front standard. I can't find any pictures of one like it in searches, but it looks professionally made by a machinist and for a purpose that I can't figure out.
Any ideas on why the crossbar has a top piece that can offset to the side and what might hook into the vertical piece?
Attachment 157353
Looks like a lot of home handyman stuff there! Is that an older Graflex style flash bracket I see there on the extension? Similar to the plate mounted on this rangefinder: https://randcollins.files.wordpress....n-graphic1.jpg
It does look like that graflex bracket (which would let an adapter bracket for it attach standard starwars flashes), and the L piece can mount farther out to the side or fully in to fold.
Clever character who modified this camera.
That's not original. There are two small holes on the top front that originally held something else, another brace most likely. I have a Conley 8x10 that looks much different. Yours could be a way to hold the front standard in place when the camera is folded. Here is what mine looks like. It has a swinging flat hook to catch a pin on top. Our lens board mounts are very different. Mine are from another Conley parts camera.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...3%20900LFF.jpg
I think it's a home-modified holder for a lens shade or compendium bellows, maybe for a vignetting device. Loosening the knob would allow you to swing the "L" out over the lens. The camera originally had a bar crossing from point-to-point on the front standard for reinforcement. Check the piercevaubel site for similar cameras: http://www.piercevaubel.com/cam/index.htm
I'm just glad that it's a very solid piece of work and looks properly machined instead of just hacked on.
The front mount has a Packard shutter behind it, that rusted looking bit at the lower left is the hose attachment point. So that's probably why the custom front end.
This one still has that hook, which holds onto a pin on the front rail when folded up. I looked up an old manual, those little holes at the top had a bar going across the front, like your bar that is half-way up, and it's very similar to an Agfa-Ansco setup (or all tailboards for that matter).
I didn't think of a shade or vignetting thingy, good concept.