Graflex.org

Les · Joined: 09 May 2001 Posts: 2682 Location: Detroit, MI

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3839575845

Is this the ultimate accessory for your Crown Graphic?

Notice anything odd about it?

Anybody have a clue what it is?

RichS · Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:10 am Post subject:

Wow, that's neat!

At first I thought it was too "polished" to be a home-made device. Then I looked at the expanded images...

The side with the speed slection has obvious 'putty' work. The other side has filled screw holes..

My guess is that it's an old Speed body, severely modified to be used as a FP shutter for a View (painted silver).

No matter what, it's neat!!!

Dan Fromm · Joined: 14 May 2001 Posts: 2148 Location: New Jersey

glennfromwy · Joined: 29 Nov 2001 Posts: 903 Location: S.W. Wyoming

Well, it's definitely home made. What interests me is how they modified the shutter release mechanism. A strange mix of vintages. Someone put a lot of work into that thing just to keep from having to buy a shutter for their view camera. The upper corner by the shutter mechanism sure looks like it was whittled with a pocket knife.

_________________
Glenn

"Wyoming - Where everybody is somebody else's weirdo"

Les · Joined: 09 May 2001 Posts: 2682 Location: Detroit, MI

Depending on what camp (someone destroyed a Pacemaker vs it's a Graflex product) you can certainly see find support for your side in this article.

Now I'm hoping that my version was a newer version of the above that somebody stripped of it's covering and made up the front half...BTW did anybody recognized the partial film pack adapter imedded in the front?

Why it's silver is anybody's guess, but I like the idea it was for a Graphic View!.

and all of the 1234 Film pack adapters i've seen were 4x5. there's a slim chance the camera is a 3x4 but it claims it's 7 1/4 square So it being a 2x3 is slim. But most of my 4x5s are 7 1/2 squarish. So there's room to worry, but there's always the hope that they used a yardstick to measure instead of a digital dial caliper.

[ This Message was edited by: Les on 2004-09-17 20:01 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Les on 2004-09-17 20:05 ]

RichS · Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 3:04 am Post subject:

It certainly could have been a one-off or prototype job direct from Graflex? Who knows, maybe it will have some kind of sticker or label on it?

Besides the film pack adapter, how about the PC connection on the bottom of the shutter-winding side? Does it have X-synch???

Ya gotta let us know the details!

Les · Joined: 09 May 2001 Posts: 2682 Location: Detroit, MI

It's that PC socket and the well made modification of the shutter plate that intrigues me. It almost looks like a wedge could be put between those black "chocks" on the "cable relesase" end of the shutter release arm and trip the shutter remotely.

On the other hand the blue paint/silver paint and the shallowness of the body make me wonder..maybe it is a Rube Goldberg hachet job.

_________________
"In order to invent, you need a good imagination and a lot of junk" Thomas Edison

Les · Joined: 09 May 2001 Posts: 2682 Location: Detroit, MI

Okay the beast arrived today and while I'll try to post some lousy pics later I thought I'd give a quick update.

The body is made of mahogany and was done by a master craftsman, or at least somebody that had more time on their hands than is typically done for these kinds of project cameras. I had thought that the tapered part would have been a glued on to the nice, narrow body of a Speed Graphic.

Not so. The tapered part is designed and built into the body of the Speed in a way that it can't just be removed.
The body is actually shorter than a normal Speed. I fyo look a speed up close you'll see the bottom of the body is very thick and sticks out below the edge of the back. This one is flush to the back. I guess since it didn't have to put up with the stress of the bed, etc, they could make it thinner. There's also no tripod socket. On the side the whole for the tripod socket is plugged.

The quality of the workmanship, both inside and out makes me think this was a factory job.

Further helping this idea is that the peep sight and the shutter are from a post 55 Graphic. The speed shows 1/125th instead of 1/100 and the peep sight is two piece not one-piece as shown in that article.

This leaves time to change the design.

The modification/addition of the PC socket however looks very much like an afterthought. It's nothing more than a wire (bell wire...purple and blue stripes) soldered to the cover and then to one pin of the bipost socket. A squirley hole is drilled into the mechanism to give clearance to the socket when assembled.

It does set off a flash but only on the T setting, which is interesting. Somebody must have either removed the contacts on all of the other slits or Graflex never put them on in the first place.

Lastly is the paint. It really is god awful. The paint on the shutter cover is thick and Kmart green/blue. Underneath is black winkle finish paint, but there's several places where you can see the black paint was chipped off and then painted over... as though this camera was heavily used. And yet, the paint on the Graflok back is pristine.

I did some preliminary scrapings on the body and it seems the wood was originally grey. Battle ship grey (as in Navy?) I could certainly understand Graflex simply painting these things instead of covering them, particularly if this body is completely original...Imagine trying to cover those curves!

_________________
"In order to invent, you need a good imagination and a lot of junk" Thomas Edison