Getting the lens to Stick

[Anthony Sanna]

I've had a problem moving lenses from my Deardorf to a Linhof. When I tighten down the lenses with a spanner, no matter how tight I try to make it, it doesn't take much to loosen the lens, in use, so it rotates. It gives me the willies when I put a lot of force into the spanner. I have this hellish vision of the spanner skipping loose and tearing into glass or the shutter. There must be some trick to this short of Loctite.

[Jim Rice]

I just let mine spin a little. As long as you can set the shutter speed, apature, ect., it won't hurt anything.

[N Dhananjay]

The problem might be becuse the lensboard is a little too thin and you run out of thread before it gets snug enough. Probably the easiest solution is buy some gasket material (cork or rubber or stuff you can get at auto parts stores). Cut a piece so that it is just slightly lrger than the hole in the lensboard and stick it on the lensboard. Now when you tighten the retaining ring, one of the cells should snug down on this material and provide a nice friction fit to prevent spinning. Cheers, DJ

[Jim Rice]

Also, most (all?) Copal shutters have a threaded hole on the back that accepts a tiny stud (that came with it) that extends into a hole drilled into (not through) the lensboard to lock the shutter into position. Most folks remove them and throw them away, so it shouldn't be difficult to talk someone here out of one.

[Anthony Sanna]

I never noticed that threaded hole. It's in a channel on the aperature ring. I might try a very small O-ring, stretched around the lens barrel. With the large size of the No.3 Copal, the spacer ring has to be placed on the outside of the lensboard to keep the aperature mark from running into the lensboard release.