I have a 210 mm Symmar in a Copal 1 shutter. It came mounted on a Sinar lens board and worked smoothly. I have re-mounted it on a brand new Graflex board (from Midwest Photo). The aperture lever is now very tight to the extent I am afraid it may eventually break. I am looking for suggestions to resolve this problem. My first thought is to mark off the travel area on the front of the board and take it down a little with a Dremel tool. My second thought is to ask for help before all I do is damage the new board.

Larry

Not being familiar with this particular lens-shutter-mounting set-up, I can only venture a conjecture that something is rubbing against something else, that wasn't happening before but now is. Possible causes: too tight jamb nut mounting, causing distortion of shutter case with resultant friction; aperture arm bent and/or contacting lens board (this is possible with the Graphex shutter, don't know about yours). I would suggest removing shutter from lens board, checking for friction-free operation, then remounting shutter, carefully checking at every stage of jamb nut tightening. Possibly re-orienting shutter on lens board would help. Try everything you can think of, short of doing anything really drastic (like shutter disassembly, or sending it out), and see what happens.

If the problem is the aperture lever binding on the lens board adding a shim (washer) on the shutter body to provide more clearance might be all that is needed.
Remember to resolve this problem before setting the infinity stops for this lens as the fix for this problem may change the relationship between the focal center of the lens and the front standard of the camera.

C. Henry

lober wrote:

I have a 210 mm Symmar in a Copal 1 shutter. It came mounted on a Sinar lens board and worked smoothly. I have re-mounted it on a brand new Graflex board (from Midwest Photo). The aperture lever is now very tight to the extent I am afraid it may eventually break. I am looking for suggestions to resolve this problem. My first thought is to mark off the travel area on the front of the board and take it down a little with a Dremel tool. My second thought is to ask for help before all I do is damage the new board. Larry

The problem was that hole in the lens board was drilled a bit too small so the retaining ring flange did not go through which over tensioned the shutter against the board. Once the hole was enlarged to allow the flange to fully seat it resolved the issue.

Good! That's one I should have mentioned also. Use it in good health!