Help with 8x10 Assembly

Here's my Wonderview 8x10 camera -- an oddity, and not the most well built of 8x10 cameras, but it's getting the job done.

Something tells me, though, that I don't have this assembled quite right. I've indicated the seam where the two pieces of the monorail screw together. I can't move the rear standard over it. I think the whole thing should be more centered on the rail, and wonder why the seam isn't in the middle of the rail. I also wonder about the tripod mount. There's a twin thumb screw that goes through a small hole in the tripod platform. The tripod is an old Davis & Sanford floating action tripod.

Anything glaringly wrong here that you can see? Thanks.

Can you move the tripod mount on the rail? Push the seam up almost against the tripod mount so you're left with the smooth portions of the rail to work with? Might make it a bit front heavy I suppose.

(That's my guess from a general engineering approach, no specific knowledge about such cameras.)

Thank you both. I'll try reversing the standards on the rail. Maybe the front standard is meant to be more or less stationary. The lens is a 12"/300mm f6.3 shutter-mounted -- nothing terribly heavy. That the system should be able to support heavier lenses makes sense to me though.

hi bvy

my take is that teh rear part of the rail is an extension.
so use the front part for short focal lengths ( can you use just the front, without
the rear ? ) and if you are using longer lenses put the rear standard on the extension and use that ...
does the rail ( the rear in the photograph ) telescope out and in ? that might be why it does that
so you might have "full extension" for longer lenses. i have a few LF cameras that are a wood geared bed design
and there are screws on the side of the bed that allow you to pull on the geared bed and it extends to be 2x the original size ...
maybe this is like that, but in tube form .. btw,from personal experience ... if you are using short FL lenses you might need to put your front standard to the end of the rail
depending on the FL the extended rail might eek itself into the view without you realizing it ( it might look like a blurry "something" in the middle of the bottom edge ) ...
longer FL no worries.

good luck !
john

Well, that's an interesting theory. I can remove the shorter piece (the extension) and cap the longer piece. I can focus down to about three feet with 16" of extension, and I think the singular piece will accommodate that. I'll try that and report back. Thanks!

have fun !
( and good luck ! )
john

Reporting back. That didn't work. The front standard only wants to ride on the long rail; the rear standard on the short rail. Also, each of the two rails has non removable end-caps -- so it seems the two pieces have to go together...