Graphic View II guy needs help

[Wayne Campbell]

My Graphic View II jumps the teeth in the rail while focusing with the black rea r knob. I have tinkered with all the screw adjustments and have not been able to make it work smoothly. All teeth and gears look ok and undamaged. As some of y ou know, the focus knob runs through the locking knob and they are somehow inter connected. There must be a simple series of adjustment steps that will make the gear at the end of the focusing knob shaft stay securely on the teeth on the und erside of the rail. If no one knows the corrective steps to take, can anyone rec ommend a Graphic View specialist to contact? Thanks.

[Doug Paramore]

Wayne: I have used a Graphic View II for years and I like it a lot. However, skipping teeth on the focus track seems to be like trunks on elephants...it is the nature of the beast. You might see if the gear track on the rail is tight. The little screws work loose. Also, you can loosen the screws and move the track just a little toward the gears, but there isn't much adjustment. The problem seems to come from the hole the shaft fits into wearing a bit. YOu can help a lot by loosening the focus lock wheel just a little instead of a lot. That helps stabalize the gear shaft. The gear shaft needs some kind of support at the track end, but I haven't figured one out yet. I just live with mine as it is. They are otherwise great cameras.

Regards,

[Wayne Campbell]

Thanks Doug. What you said confirms all my experiments and suspicions. I , too, found that when you loosen the focus locking wheel just a little it keeps the focus pinion gear in tight contact with the rack and the slippage is gone, or at least somewhat better. Of course, you could pull out the focus knob all the way and just slide the standards on the rail, but you still need that millimicron gear movement to get the final sharpness.

I guess like Douglas MacArthur, all the graphic view repairmen have just faded away. Yourself and another are the only two responses I received.

Thanks again,

Wayne

[Gary Ross]

try www.stephenshuart.com ..He makes parts for graflex cameras.. Might be able to help you......(-: Gary....He provided me with an original lensboard for my Graflex View Camera......

[Matthew Slaske]

I found on my GV2 that the teeth on the rack were just slightly worn so I pulled the assembly apart and made a few matchbox spacers and stuck them in between the bottom plate and the inside plate (the one with the bevelled edges) and screwed it back together. That extra millimeter or so did the trick and focussing is smooth again until it gets close to the middle of the rail - no big deal since I've never had to focus the back that far. It tends to get a bit tight if screwed down too much but it's easier to unscrew the adjuster knob than deal with that bumping & jumping stuff. C-YA, Matt S.

"Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker" -Linus Van Pelt