John,
Do you happen to have a manual for this camera? If not, can you answer the following:
How to I zero out the front rise? I see a red dot on the side of the standard but I am not sure where it should be placed.
What are the two knobs on the bottom for?
I don't have and never did have a manual for mine, but they are a pretty straight forward style metal field camera. I bought mine with a shot bellows and order a replacement from Japan. It was slightly thicker when folded, but still had no problem folding it. The plus side to the new bellows as compared to the old is that the new is much more heavy duty. I also completely disassemble mine and gave it a good CLA.
Now, for the red dot. I ran some parallel rulers along the top and bottom of back and then measure the distance to the mid-point between them. I set the rise/fall according to that midpoint, which for me puts the red dot just above the carrier that holds the front standard. Another words just slide the front lens plate up until you see the red dot above the notched side plate where your knob rides. This will be plenty close enough for government work, as they used to say.
If you loosen the two bottom knobs and hold or have the camera on a pod you can pull the rear standard back to give you more bellows draw/extension for longer lens like the 300mm for say, portrait and such. Or extreme close-ups.
I love my camera, but I do wish it were lighter and had the capabilities of being folded with a small lens like the Fuji 135mm f5.6 W. Well, for the price I paid I'm happy and I guess rugged things do weigh more. If you need more help you can PM me also.
John