Korona II 5X7 restoration question

[kgvarrato]

Hello all,

I am new to large format but have been taking 35 mm, and medium format photographs for years. A friend from my photography club suggested I look into this group and see if anyone could help. I acquired an old Korona II 5X7 camera years ago and am now getting time to restore it. On the outside it was in fairly rough shape. The leatherette needs replaced, no biggie. The inside is in decent shape and mostly complete and in good shape. Other than a few misc small screw holes on the lens board, missing ground glass and small viewfinder on the base its in good shape. The bellows look newer and I light checked it and there are only a few small corner pinholes Which I fixed with Elmer's and black paint. My questions are: One I found a matching stamped 26 on both the camera body and the film holder. I am figuring those were numbers for parts referencing to make sure both match up. Not the date. Second is I am looking for a viewfinder, it is held on by 4 screws, goes on the right side behind the thumb screw adjustment. I could make one but don't know the measurements, or if someone knows where to purchase one. Here are the screw holes: 40 mm X 7 mm. All I have to go by is a black and white catalog image. So if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Kevin

[Jon Shiu]

Sometimes the viewfinders are mounted on brackets that allow the viewfinder to flop over to change orientation. I guess you could find one or a junk camera on ebay, but could be hard to find it.

Jon

[Tin Can]

Look on eBay and you will find cameras with that viewfinder. I have a similar camera with one. I never use it, GG is really the best way to shoot 5X7. It sounds and looks like you are doing an affordable rehab, I would suggest not wasting time and money chasing an essentially non essential fluff piece.

I agree with Jon, a nice one that works will be very difficult to find, and I seen plenty of nice cameras like yours that work great, but the viewfinder is not usable.

Or we keep this thread going long enough that someone pops up and has one. a long shot...

Nice work!

btw, welcome to LFF!

[kgvarrato]

Thanks Randy and Jon, cosmetically thats all I'm looking for. Even though I am restoring it to be a functioning camera, I still would like it to be somewhat original. Which right now because when I started cleaning up the nickel silver and polishing it some started flaking off. Hence showing the brass which I like better. So I decided to buff off the nickel and shine the brass. Which is turning out great.

[kgvarrato]

Stripped, stained and polished. Here is the base, and lens board with all the fittings now buffed out to a nice shinny brass finish. The body almost finished one more coat of varnish then recover the leatherette. FYI I saw a post about small screws. I found a company called Bolt Depot. http://www.boltdepot.com/ i ordered a small quanity of 20 of various sizes with no problem, no minimum. Ordered Thrusday night had it Monday morning. Look into them if you need small screws. Here are 2 images so far:

[Tin Can]

Very nice indeed. I hope you keep it!

[Terry Moore]

You do great work!