Assessing and fixing up my Cirkut #10

[frobozz]

The funny thing is, after using a helicoil to put that tripod socket right, I figured out that I have a #10 gearhead (possibly from you) that has the matching tripod screw! Well, formerly-matching, now that I "fixed" the camera body. Sheesh.

The positive engagement clutch (the style with the pin and the cutouts) would be a pretty easy mod to do even with limited tools, I may end up modifying the other ones. Though at least with no film involved, the existing original teeth seem to hold pretty well on these.

I am not looking to branch out into other sizes, despite my "CAS" !! I'm wasting enough money as it is, heh. I did pick up a #6 Cirkut outfit gear head and legs, based on your very clever realization that it could be used to bring down the needed tooth count for a pinion gear when trying to shoot a wide angle lens. So I too will be investigating making some sort of bag bellows front to make use of my (supposedly) sufficiently-wide-image-circle Fujinon 150mm lens. Let me know if you get anywhere on that first. I too hope I get to WVa sometime.

So what do you do with the color negs - scan them?

In my continual path of buying rare things when they are available, rather than when it makes sense that I need them, I recently picked up 100 rolls of color film, plus a small upright freezer to store them in. Yes, sure I shouldn't have done that until I really had a known working camera and the facilities to process and print the film... but by the time I have all that, the film won't be available. So there I go again.

Thanks for your help through all this,
Duncan

 

[Mark Crabtree]

I was thinking the head you got from me was #8, but have been wanting to find the list I sent. Not too many regrets on sending things

I like the original clutch if it is in decent shape. I sharpen the teeth as best I can with a triangular file.

I will not be messing with the wide angle bellows conversion since I no longer have a project that would benefit. My friend here built one to photograph the construction of a radio telescope at Greenbank that he couldn't get in otherwise. That was quite a while ago and I think we worth both working on the idea simultaneously, but I didn't have a pressing need. He could tell you about what he did if you get going on it. Let me know and I'll put you in touch. He used a #6 gear head for those shots. I'm not sure who came up with that idea. I had been doing it from pretty early on with a 210 Dagor reversed to fit in toward the camera, allowing enough bellows extension on a standard (more or less) #10 to get a touch of front rise. I think Jim Lipari made the gears for me. I miscalculated the first time and needed to order a second gear to get it right.

I'm still working on a way to scan negs. I camera scan now, but need to build a better light box. Sorry for the delays in posting here; I just get sidetracked with other stuff.

Mark

 

[frobozz]

I have to figure out all my spare gear heads. I know I picked up a #8 outfit head and legs from a confused ebay seller, which I had hoped was the needed #6 head. But that's OK, because when I finally got a real #6 outfit head only, I had the legs for it. But I thought the head you gave me had the bigger pins for the legs, which would make it a real #10 head...but I should double check.

It occurs to me I wouldn't actually need a bag bellows, since the original camera bellows folds completely into itself (unlike, say, a newer 4x5 monorail bellows, which will only compress so far and thus the need for a bag instead.) But that would require pretty much destroying the original #10 camera body I got, which is in pretty sad shape anyway, but I'm not sure I could sleep at night knowing I had removed a #10 camera body permanently from existence. Something I'll definitely be investigating more though.

No worries about delays in posting, we're all busy with lots of stuff. And I'm now at the trying-to-get-the-plumber-to-finish-his-quote-and-start-the-work stage of the darkroom, so I won't be able to take and develop pictures for some time yet anyway. Perhaps around the same time it warms up around here, I hope I hope.

Duncan

 

[Mark Crabtree]

The #8 head is probably still up in my closet.

You still need the bag bellows for movements. That was why I used to reverse mount my 210 Dagor, that let me barely squeeze a bit of front rise.

I believe I have a #10 front only partially disassembled already. We should get that into your hands somehow. No point in screwing up yours, and mine is not going to get used. I think it had a completely shot bellows, so was a good candidate for conversion.

 

[frobozz]

Ooo, absolutely I'll take your $10 front parts! Message me if you don't still have my address. Let me send you some money for that.

Oh right, I forgot about movements. None of that possible with a squished-flat normal bellows. In fact sometimes it's a bit fussy just to get the camera folded up if the rise isn't just so on the lens board.

Thanks,
Duncan

 

[Mark Crabtree]

Hopefully you meant #10 not $10. I'm not that reasonable.

 

[frobozz]

Hopefully you meant #10 not $10. I'm not that reasonable.

Bwahahaha, yes, sorry. What a typo!

Duncan

 

[frobozz]

-- A note about "full speed" - all 3 of the motors I played with this weekend run almost perfectly identically slow. About 1/9.5-1/10 when set to 1/12, and about 1/1.5-1/1.75 when set to 1/2. But that is only when assembled with the governor speed control in place. When allowed to run free, with the governor unconstrained, they'll run up to about 1/13.5. So the problem is the governor stop leather thingy effectively sitting a bit too low, but there isn't that kind of fine adjustment on the gear for the governor pawl, so it must be a change in the shape or texture of the leather thingy over time. I suspect I could either replace it, or file it down a bit or something to pull all these things up to the right speed, but you have to pull the entire motor out to re-insert that pawl (I tried for an hour to do it inside the camera, it's just not possible in that confined space) and I was tired of having my hands greasy, so an experiment for some other day (or month, or year, or person!)

Of course upon further reflection I remembered there IS a fine speed adjustment! Two setscrews at the top of the governor assembly hold it to the shaft. If you loosen both of those you can slide the governor up and down the shaft (which means closer to and farther away from the leather speed setting pawl thingy.) Move it, retest, move it, retest - it's a laborious fine speed adjustment, but it is there.

Things to note:

-- Moving the assembly down increases the speeds; moving it up decreases them. The lore I've read out there says to set your 1/2 speed first and then just accept your faster speeds at whatever they are. I guess it depends on what you're needing to do. If you're shooting fast film and don't have small apertures on your lens maybe you'd even want to set your 1/12 speed faster than 1/12 or something.

-- It's INSANELY sensitive. I mean just crazy sensitive. My 1/2 speed was slow and I ended up needing to move it an imperceptible amount to dial it in to a real 1/2. Another camera was close enough to 1/2 that I decided not to mess with it, I wasn't sure I could get it any closer, and could definitely spend a lot of time making it worse. All the worse because the setscrews grip the shaft well enough that you have to back them off enough to get it to move, but then it will easily move all over the place. I found that just barrrrrrrrely prying on it against the top of the governor frame would move it the hair down that I ultimately needed.

-- Make sure you have the right screws. There are two nearly identical screws holding the governor spring blades onto the assembly. Each pair of screws is 180 degrees apart. Make sure you're working on the right ones! And have a good small flatblade screwdriver. They're in there pretty tight, and it would be easy to shear out the slot in the screw if you don't hold a good square screwdriver firmly and squarely in the slot as you turn.

Methods for calculating Cirkut effective shutter speeds are all over out there. But if anyone needs me to go over that again here, just let me know and I'll write it up.

Duncan