Wass Camera Project Post #2 – Stripping the Stand

As mentioned in the previous post – there was a canny bit of woodworm evident at some point in the camera’s life. Chances are the beasties inside had long gone but with the camera being stored indoors once restored it’s not a chance I wanted to take.

Fortunately, I work in a Museum. Equally fortunately, I have some very understanding colleagues who were willing to deposit the camera and stand into an industrial freezer unit – standard practice for all new arrivals to the Museum that may potentially have bugs and beasties lurking within which we’d not want to contaminate the other collections.

So, a good month it spent wrapped in plastic under arctic conditions, here it is seeing daylight again – the two articles nearest bottom left:

So…a week passes and a day off work meant I could get stuck in and see just how bad the damage was. The short answer – pretty bad!

The long answer…?

I decided to start with the stand, the logic being that I would have something to put the camera on once that was restored. Plus it looked like an easier start. So, I took the main components apart, bagged the fittings off, labelled, and started sanding. Using a DA, whilst not neccessarily an authentic (or subtle) technique means I can make a lot of progress in the short time I have to work on this.

Here’s the quick before and after of the top panel. Depending on the final finish I may not need to take it any further back. Not sure on the type of wood, pretty hard either way!

Tatty but solid – note the lack of leg on the right hand side – this is the worst of the woodworm damage…

Impressive mechanism for raising and lowering the stand – all seized but will work again!

Underside:

Partially sanded:

And this is the result of a bit of investigating the wormy leg. Woops:

I’ve taken the majority of the destroyed wood out, leaving a bit of a large gap to fill. Thankfully, it’s not an overly complex piece so should be relatively easy to graft a replacement piece in:

Fully sanded on the left, partially on the right. Suspect it had been black french polished originally:

Box o Bits

Bagged up bits:

Rack & pinion pieces:

Wheel/castor – will all clean up nicely:

And the raising/lowering mechanism:

More soon…

Click here to read Post #3 – Rebuilding the Stand