I recently came by an ex-Graflex XL 58 Grandagon.

The bad news is that the rear cell has separations. I've bodged the lens onto a temporary board and shot it anyway, we'll soon know how it shoots.

The good news is that it will focus to infinity on a 2x3 Pacemaker Speed.

The not so good news is that the lens' rear cell is too big to clear the front standard. Putting it on the camera requires unscrewing the rear cell and remounting it from the rear. Fiddly but doable.

The slightly worse news is that the shutter has no blade arrester/press focus, no "T" speed, and no cable release socket. I can sort of see how to kludge up a way to hold a cable release, after I have the lens properly mounted on a board. I focused it and shot the test shots using my Speed's focal plane shutter by setting it to "B," holding it open with one hand, and focusing/pressing cable release with the other. Doable, not the best way to shoot.

I wonder, has anyone else solved the problem already? And is extracting the cells from the XLized Synchro Compur #00 and putting them in another #00 that has, at least, a cable release socket possible? The rear cell comes out easily enough, but I'm not sure how to get the front cell out.

Cheers,

Dan

Well I didn't go quite down to 2x3 and my Grandagon was still in its XL mount. this mount has the arresting hardware and cable release socket attached to the tube. All I did was create a curve piece of wood that would allow the arresting hardware and cable socket to be in their normal working position. I did this on a 4x5 Pace board and it works out very well. The Grandagon just covers 4x5 no movements.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Les on 2005-09-05 16:53 ]</font>

Quote:

On 2005-09-05 16:51, Les wrote: Well I didn't go quite down to 2x3 and my Grandagon was still in its XL mount. this mount has the arresting hardware and cable release socket attached to the tube. All I did was create a curve piece of wood that would allow the arresting hardware and cable socket to be in their normal working position. I did this on a 4x5 Pace board and it works out very well. The Grandagon just covers 4x5 no movements. <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Les on 2005-09-05 16:53 ]</font>

Cute! But of course I don't have the XL mount.

Tell me, please, does your lens' shutter cocking lever interfere with it shutter speed lever at low speeds? Mine does, to use it I've removed the extension. The extension looks fine, the lever sticking out of the side of the shutter looks a little twisted.

Thanks again, regards,

Dan