[LargeFormat] UK lens/shutter repairers

[Clive Warren]

At 20:10 24/07/01 +0100, LargeFormat@davidmorton.org wrote:
>I have here a nice 12 inch Velostigmat in a Betax shutter. It's in pretty
>good condition, but the variable softness ring is very stiff and the shutter
>times are off. Does anyone know of a UK equivalent of Mr S.K. Grimes, who
>could do good things to it for me?
>
>I got it cheap with an Eastman 2D. The Eastman's in very nice condition but
>someone had managed to repaint the Velostigmat's barrel and in the process
>cover up the softness markings and jammed the lens on 5 (maximum softness).
>I'm so grateful for that, it took two minutes to free it up and reset it to
>'0' and I think their efforts saved me quite a bit of money. :-)

Well David you have a very nice lens there!  There are a couple of us on 
the list who have these wonderful variable softness Velostigmats - have a 
look back in the archives on the old list for discussions on them.  (Simply 
use the search box on any of the http://www.f32.net pages to search the 
archives).

Mine is in a studio shutter which does not have synch and only one set of 
blades for aperture and shutter. Have been thinking about putting it in a 
Betax or Ilex shutter for a while.  Would be interested to know the size of 
the Betax shutter and perhaps you would be willing to post a photo in the 
Lens topic on the f32 Forum.  Contact me off list at forum@f32.net and I'll 
sign you up so you can post the photo.  Will also then post one of the lens 
in a studio shutter.

As far as servicing the shutter, I have a chap locally in Bristol who can 
be persuaded to sort them out, however he has a high workload with his 
business and can take anything from a few weeks to several months.  Given 
the age of the shutter, it is also usually the case that the bearing holes 
in the plates holding various cogs are oval instead of round. He can sort 
this to a certain extent but using "peening over" rather than bushing the 
holes back to round.  Costs for bushing would make the purchase of a new 
Copal shutter seem cheap!

I have contacts for repairers in other parts of the country who service 
large format shutters but will have to chase up a few people to get hold of 
the details.  As far as I know there isn't a UK equivalent of Mr 
Grimes........

Cheers,
             Clive