A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call from a client who said he had a vintage wooden tripod. He was nice enough to come visit with the tripod, and at first glance I was not sure exactly what it was. I decided to buy it anyway and try to figure out what it was.
Meanwhile, Erin was doing inventory and happened to notice the Wall camera we have currently sitting in the showroom with an Akeley Gyro Tripod under it. It looked suspiciously like this new tripod was an Akeley Gyro Tripod that someone had disassembled and put back together upside down so they could mount this Ries Model A Photo Plane Tilt Head to the underside of the bowl.
A strange choice, but I hope it served them well. As I took it apart to put it back together correctly, I noticed sadly that they had cut some big grooves out of the bowl. But, I was able to successfully put it back together in the correct orientation, and there is plenty of material left for it to be a working tripod.
I have a couple of Akeley Gyro Heads on hi-hats, so I pulled one out, put the gyro head on the tripod, and indeed, it is a perfect match. The tripod is filthy, so it desperately needs to be taken completely back apart and deeply cleaned, stabilized, and reassembled, but at least now it is a mystery no more. I will also need to make it a pan handle at some point. I will show you more of this interesting gyro head as I continue to work on it.
