Restoring a Century Studio 10A

[BradS]

I went to an ice cream social this afternoon...exposed a few sheets of film and....came home with a Century 10a Studio camera. It looks to be in pretty good condition but, it is completely dis-assmbled. All the major pieces seem to be present. But, all of the little bits are just thrown together in a bag. Anyway, I'm thinking of doing a minor restoration.

I'd like to clean up the wood finish and reassemble it.

I would like some suggestions on how to deal with the wood finish.

I would also greatly appreciate any diagrams or drawings...even photos of some of the details of what goes where.

Any help or encoragement appreciated.

I'll post some photos of the starting point in a bit.

 

[archphoto]

One place to start: the Large Format Photography Forum, somebody restored a Centrury recently.

Congrad's !!!!

Peter

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Nice. Is that an 8x10" with a stand?

 

[jimgalli]

Congrats Brad. I've sure had a lot of fun with mine. Now you can drag home lenses with 7 inch wide flanges and they'll make perfect sense.

 

[BradS]

I made some photos of the major pieces as I took them out of the box last night but, the digi-snapper and I were apparently, not on the same wavelength. I'll try again with a real camera later this week.

I was originally concerned about the many small screws and other bits that I found in the bag of small parts accompanying the camera. It turns out (I believe) most of these are superfluous...they must have been just a bunch of small parts not necessarily for this camera. I did find among the small parts all of the bits necessary to re-assemble the camera....and so, last night I cleaned most everything with warm soapy water, rubed the wood pieces with lemon oil furniture stuff and put most of it back together.

There is a Goerz Celor in Betax #5 up front. The glass looked bad but cleaned up pretty good. Amazingly, the giant Betax seems functional if a bit ugly and inconsistent. There is also an Ilexpo pneumatic shutter. The bellows are present but hopelessly useless. They are fused together in one big lump of crunchy black stuff.

The wood is sturdy and cleaned up pretty well. I decided against a full strip and refinish for now as that is not really my strength.

The back is a standard 8x10 -> 5x7 reducing back. It rides in a sliding carriage that would also, obviously, accept an stnadard 8x10 back.

No stand was included.

So, I have the thing all cleaned up, oiled and put back together...and it looks pretty good. I would love to use this thing but without a bellows, it's just going to be furniture for a while. The deardorff needs a new Bellows too and will certainly get one first.

 

[ic-racer]

One place to start: the Large Format Photography Forum, somebody restored a Centrury recently.

Congrad's !!!!

Peter

Yea, that guy did a good job (and he made his own bellows for less then 20 bucks)
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=29267&highlight=century

 

[Perry Way]

I've seen 4 or 5 of this brand sell recently on eBay wondering if it was worth the risk to buy one and refinish. Anyway I am interested with the progress, if any. So I've subscribed to this thread so I'll be notified. By the way, making the bellows is not a difficult endeavor. I have done a lot of study on it, if you want some links to good tutorials I'll dig them up for you.

 

[ic-racer]

I've seen 4 or 5 of this brand sell recently on eBay wondering if it was worth the risk to buy one and refinish.

I don't see how you can lose if you get a camera for $200 or so. I think you will be better off than a home made camera and it will certainly turn out to be less cash outlay than a contemporary camera.