Preparing a Quarter Plate Camera for Wet Plate

George did an excellent job restoring his quarter plate camera. He replaced the bellows and gave the camera a full once over. I might have to remember the green bellows for my own cameras!

For my part, I made a new front rise panel for his universal iris. I also; modified an antique dry plate holder for wet plate, made a replica brass latch, and fitted a borosilicate ground glass screen and Fresnel.

George sent me his front rise panel so that I could measure it to create a new one. Special considerations had to be given to the offset hole, thumbscrew slot, the timber used, French polish colour.

The camera is very compact, and so is the reversing back. This made it difficult to find holders to fit, but also made it difficult to create a new back for the camera to fit larger holders.

In the end a similarly compact Watson dry plate holder from the 1890s came to save the day. Of course the focus needed calibrating. However the approximately 1mm difference gave me reason to think that 1mm sterling silver square wire could be used as the seating for the wet plate and still allow for some leeway for calibration. It worked, with a lot of fiddly hand work. It would have been easiest to take 1mm off the ground glass ledge, but having the sterling silver chips in the holder has resulted in a period correct solution.

The original plate holder must have had a stop rib on it. As this holder didn’t, the most elegant solution was to add a brass strip to the camera back.

Making a new latch.

The ground glass frame was ever so slightly under actual quarter plate size, and so required a little fettling. Got there in the end! According to George the borosilicate ground glass screen and Fresnel are quite the transformation!