Kalart mirror prism etc.

[monkeymon]

Ok, i'w been tweaking my kalart rangefinder, for 3 days now.. i was wondering, does anybody know how to calibrate the mirror prism to it's right position?

I know the basics, how to calibrate.. but i can't find any information on the mirror prism adjustment! I just can't get it to track the whole distance correctly, either it's ok on close distances but infinity is off, or the other-way around. I'm starting to think the mirror prism might be the solution, because i know how to calibrate everything else.. the arm & front & back slides.

Just to check:
The front slide is for the focal length and the back slide is for fine adjustment? The arm moves the brass thing under the rangefinder, and that needs to be straight when rails are fully racked in.

PS. Ok, it seems I just lucked it out! I went *** the infinity, and just concentrated on getting it right at close distances, well after i got it working on 1.2m and at about 10m.. I though, well.. lets see how far of the infinity is.. and damn, it was dead on!

But if somebody knows how the mirror prism is calibrated correctly, i would be interested to know.. so the next time i have to do this, i would know what the heck i'm actually doing.

[Wayne Aho]

The Gralflex website has the calibration procedure, along with a link to the original instructions;

http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/kalart-adjustment.html

Wayne

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Clocking the actuator arm positioned correctly is also a necessary step, I found. Too, if you've replaced the semi-silvered front surface mirror, the prism may need adjusted with the little screw under the prism, which most instructions fail to mention. Even with all this, it's still a back-and-forth adjusting procedure of getting it closer and closer until it works at all distances. Hope this helps.

[monkeymon]

Well i kinda got it all working already, but was still wondering about the mirror prism adjustment. As it's not mentioned much on the instructions.. the basic calibration i know

There seems to be 2 points that the instructions often miss, the correct starting point for the actuator arm as Ivan pointed out. And the one thing that i also noticed, was the spring of the mirror prism, i have 2 kalarts and on both it was wrong. I finally noticed it, if the spring is not in correct position the kalart won't work correctly.

The only thing i don't understand is the mirror prism adjustment, but i used it and got my kalart to work dead on from 1.2m to infinity with 135/3.5 lens. So i'm happy.. but kinda would like to understand it completely, not just follow instructions.

But well, i'm really happy about this.. this is the first time i have had my rangefinder to work fully.