Dick Phillips?

[Kirk Gittings]

Any one have current contact info for Dick? I need a part for my 4x5 and I am getting no response from the email I have.

[vinny]

yes, pm sent

[Michael Mutmansky]

What'd you do to my camera Kirk???

I may have a few parts, depending on what happened. I have a small container here with a few items. The levels are prone to drying out, if that camera had them on it, I don't recall. I may have a few.


---Michael

[Kirk Gittings]

Michael, While doing a shot straight down with my 4x5 the focusing rail screwed out completely-hanging the lens by the bellows and depositing the white washer from the focus screw, both alignment springs and both the little grey shoes (guides?) in the mud at my feet. I managed to recover all but one of the grey shoes.

[Drew Wiley]

There isn't anything on those camera that can't be easily replicated in a local machine shop. So as long as you've still got the mirror image part, it should be a piece
of cake to have made if you can't find any more original parts. I've made my own replacement parts for his 8x10 in my own shop using just basic tools and readily
available materials, quite inexpensively, with a tad of help from industrial suppliers like McMaster-Carr. If it's a delrin part you're missing, that kind of material is easy to fabricate. Dick used fairly simple equipment and materials in the first place, which kept his overhead low. Smart guy.

[Sal Santamaura]

Any one have current contact info for Dick? I need a part for my 4x5 and I am getting no response from the email I have.

Dick frequently goes on extended travel, especially at this time of year. It can take a while for him to respond, but he will eventually.

...While doing a shot straight down with my 4x5 the focusing rail screwed out completely-hanging the lens by the bellows and depositing the white washer from the focus screw, both alignment springs and both the little grey shoes (guides?) in the mud at my feet. I managed to recover all but one of the grey shoes.

By "grey shoes (guides?)" are you referring to a 3/8-inch diameter, 3/8-inch long cylinder with a 1/8-inch clearance hole through it? If so, I have an extra. Let me know your postal address and I'll send it to you.

Note that there should have been a small machine screw installed through a threaded hole at the front of the left-side (looking from the lens end) base channel that prevents the focus bed from moving fully forward and sending everything flying the way it did. Also, there may have been some small washers between the springs and cylindrical glides to fine-tune tension on them. If, after reassembling everything, there's "chatter" while focusing, more glide tension is needed.

[Kirk Gittings]

Drew, Yes even I could make a replacement part but would prefer the original if at all possible.

Wow that's GREAT SAL! I will check out the rest. 1414 Phoenix Ave. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Kirk,

Well, hopefully, the bellows is still in OK shape.

I don't have any of those pars, unfortunately, but it sounds like Sal may. I think what I have fit the 8x10 I had.

There aren't many things in life that I really regret, but selling that 4x5 was one of them.

---Michael

[Kirk Gittings]

Well I'm glad you did sell it. It is my favorite LF field camera to date and it has served me extremely well!

[Sal Santamaura]

...Wow that's GREAT SAL! I will check out the rest. 1414 Phoenix Ave. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107.

OK. I might not get it in the mail until tomorrow, but the envelope should be at your mailbox by Thursday or Friday.

If the experience of your recovered glide spending time in mud renders focusing action rough, Dick recommends a little silicone be added to the shaft upon which it rides. He suggests using a toothpick for application and only purchasing CRC Heavy Duty Silicone, which is/was available at Ace Hardware.