Quote Originally Posted by Whiteymorange View Post
I say convert. If you restore it, it will no doubt be a wonderfully beautiful doorstop, since you are unlikely to give magic lantern shows. If you convert it, try to do as little as you can that can't be undone. It looks like you would need a back and some sort of lens-board arrangement- neither of which is likely to require you to destroy what you have. The same for using it as an enlarger. Wet plate use will likely stain the wood, but it would be completely in character, I think. Wonderful find!
Yep, that's what I'm doing I've started to disassemble it, in order to repair the bits that need repairing, clean up the whole lot and then ascertain exactly how to sympathetically convert it. I've started to keep a blog diary of the transformation at http://creativeimagemaker.blogspot.com and I think it's completely possible to alter this enlarging camera to a large format camera and still be able to return it to original fairly simply.

The bellows were filthy, some of the frames came apart at the joints and there's a couple of not-so-good cracks that need attending to, but for a 100 year old item, its not too bad...

David.