I got this camera for Christmas and it was intended to be "for pieces only".

The overall condition of the camera is very poor. All the leather is gone and somebody has already tried to re trim the camera body adding another layer of leather. There are some pieces missing such as the film retaining knobs.

In order to make the borders of the leather thinner, I fabricated this Dremmel support. The board and the Dremmel are set in a 15 degrees angle. The right board can move back and forward.

It works perfectly. I have to be carefully with the fingers and the end of the leather piece to avoid the leather wrapping around the grinding tool.

The leather piece cut and trimmed.

I fabricated a leather hole punch with a piece of copper tube. I painted with a pencil the advancing red window to mark in the leather the place where the hole must be cut.

A couple of hammer whacks later, I had a hole on the leather. I trimmed by hand the border of the leather to make it thinner.

Same thing for the big hole in the middle of the back of the camera.

Leather in place. I glued it with contact glue in spray can.

The holes were trimmed to fit the red window and the back opening knob.

The leather inside the camera was reduced to dust.

I cut the leather without removing all the ancillaries. I only removed the leg and the distance plate.

I will paint the edges of the leather with dark brown paint.

The finishing is a little rough around the side leg.

I use a bent and carved screwdriver to ease the tabs from the bellows.

The bellows tabs.

The bellows and the lining were unglued. I glued them back together with contact glue. The newspaper paper used for the bellows is from a Spanish newspaper from the 50's. The bellows are not original.

Not less than 11 pieces for a leg.

One of these is missing. I have to do one from scratch.

The measurements...

To be continued. Stay tunned!