Happy Halloween! To celebrate, we return to the ghost of a project that I never had a chance to finish. Back in the beginning of 2022 I began work on restoring Mitchell Standard #46, one of the oldest Mitchell cameras I have had the “pleasure” to work on. I say this with a grain of salt, as in its previous life, this camera was crudely “converted” to a pseudo-reflex configuration. The genius that did this conversion cut away much of the bottom of the camera where it meets the rackover L base, the face of the camera where the light trap that covered the shutter would be, removed the fade-dissolve and variable shutter mechanisms, and most sadly, discarded the original L base and shutter control section. I made quite a bit of progress in this restoration between February and November of 2022, before other more urgent projects called me away. Now I finally have some time to continue where I left off. But first, let us revisit some of the work that was done up to this point. In order to fully evaluate the condition of the camera and the necessary work to come, the camera was completely disassembled. Most of the remaining internal parts are original to Standard #46; so this project involved restoring the original camera casting so the front light trap was replaced, the rackover dovetail gives and stop plates were returned to their proper places, and the shutter control system was reconstructed from inventory parts. This will continue to be a long term project, and I will bring you glimpses of it as I make further progress. Many years ago now, I acquired this camera along with my friend Bill Wertz with the intention of us putting it back together, together. Sadly, Bill passed away just before I began this work, so I dive back into this project in Bill’s honor. Next week, we will revisit the major progress milestones that I reached, and share the next steps in this restoration project. Stay tuned!
