syncing 2 older flashes

[eddy pula]

I'm looking for a cord that will connect my modern view camera lens to two metz hammer head flashes. I was thinking a pc male to two pc females so I could use other flashes as well. I've heard that Paramount will make custom anything cords. I found the Y cord custom order form and I added it up and I was surprised the bill would be around $70, which is more than I would like to spend on some wire. Is there any cheaper way to have the camera fire two non slaved flashes. I would like a wired solution because the optical penut slaves I've tried never seem to work, and even modern canon 580ex's are not always reliable to fire off the other in the field. I'm not afraid to try and make my own sync cables, I've made xlr audio cables before.
Also
I fried a digital camera directly connecting older flashes to it (Never again with wein safe sync) is there any danger to running all that juice through old batteryless cameras like a rolleiflex or a view camera lens, I wouldn't think so but better safe than sorry.
Thanks

[jk0592]

The "Nisha Multi Outlet Plug" available at B&H might be a solution. Otherwise, tey also have a paramount Y pc cord at half the price you quote.

[chassis]

Another idea is to run the pc cord of one flash to your shutter pc socket. Then slave the other flash with a Wein optical slave. The Wein "hot shoe" slave has either a hot shoe or PC connection to fire the flash. I tried this and it works with my Toyo 45AII with 150mm Nikkor/Copal 0. I ran the PC cord of my Sunpak 622 to the shutter, and mounted the hot shoe slave to my Minolta 4000AF.

The limitation with this setup is the length of the PC cord to the shutter. I want my Sunpak to be the primary light, and relatively close to subject and farther from camera. The configuration I am using forces the Sunpak to be closer to the camera, and the optical slave-driven 4000AF can be almost anywhere.

[John Koehrer]

FWIW when you sync two flash units through one PC connector the voltage is additive so two connectors at 10V=20V. It shouldn't matter with a mechanical switch though.

Don't want to use a radio system?

[Bob Salomon]

Why not just plug one flash into a slave unit and eliminate the second cord? Or a radio slave?