The Beginnings of a Wet Plate Monster

So Mikey Simpson and I purchased this Kodak 36 inch f:8 Huge Vintage Aerial.  Our aim is to build an epic wet plate camera with some alternative methods.  The lens weighs 10kgs and with the collar is a big hunk of metal and glass.

 I wanted to take a look inside and we decided we should take out the shutter because it was one speed and it slightly obscured the edges of the lens.  Apparently the glass on this thing is radioactive, that's why it will be stored at Mike's house.

Above you can see the shutter mechanism, the shutter control button collar and various washers and clips which held it all in place.  The lens came apart simple enough and with only a little man-handling the shutter components soon came out too ... easy so far!

Just had to put the aperture control and iris back in and it's good to go.

We got the lens, now we got to find a way of mounting/supporting the beast and come up with some kind of camera back!