FWIW. The question has come up as to why the Graphex and Rapax Shutters with the switch that offers Red M...Black M..Red F and Black X...and OFF...have the OFF position. There's a very good reason. I've been working on one of these, and leaving the synch selector to anything but OFF places a lot of undue stress on the main spring that does the work when you trip the shutter... and on the cumbersome flash synch timing assembly. If flash is on, there's a lot more hardware that must be moved...the entire flash synch timing assembly...and it stretches the mechanism's capability to the limit. So, to save wear and tear, the "OFF" position is there to make the whole thing have a longer life. In the OFF position, the flash timing assembly is disabled. If you have one of these shutters, I recommend you leave it in the OFF position when not using flash, and the entire shutter assembly will benefit. Fred.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: clnfrd on 2003-12-14 18:41 ]</font>

Thanks! I suspected as much, having "restored" two Graphex shutter synchronizers to functional status (involving only cleaning/re-positioning/re-insulating the contacts). There are sure a lot of whizzing and whirring activities going on inside there and I would not want to attempt a complete re-build of these geared marvels!

It's awfully easy to inadvertently move the lever out of the "off" position, and I will now be extra vigilant to insure that this doesn't happen.

Henry

I was told by an old Graflex rep that Graflex had new recruits to Rochester for a orientation. During this they brought every body into a room and gave each a new Graphex shutter, a table and tools. The object.
"dismantle and reassemble the shutter. You will you this shutter in the next phase. They must be competely operational. You have one hour."

Well at the end of the hour Graflex and a pile of shutter parts on several desks as nobody could put their shutter back together. Which was the point. "Let this be a lesson. NEVER TINKER WITH A CUSTOMER"S SHUTTER!"

Les.

Key phrase here is "Customer's shutter." Your own shutter doesn't count!