[Steve Smith]

A couple of years ago I bought an old Speed Graphic for £25 in fairly poor condition. The focal plane shutter was way beyond repair as was the rangefinder. The vinyl (leather?) covering had been painted red and was peeling off.

I stripped the body down to bare wood and patched in the holes where the shutter mechanism used to be and I have now got it back together as a simple scale focused point and shoot camera (although it can still be focused using the ground glass).

My query is about firing the in lens shutters on these cameras. I have seen pictures of Speed Graphics with solenoids set up to trip the shutter but I don't have one of those.

What method is normally used for this? The options I can think of are to just press the release lever on the lens or use a short cable release.

It's an Anniversary model (I think) like this one: http://www.imagine-it-imaging.com/Vi...Graphic_II.jpg

I could set up something on the lens board similar to the one in this picture.

I am going to take it out today and shoot a few sheets of film. We have just had a fresh layer of snow and the sun is shining. I can't think of better conditions to test the bellows for pinholes!


Steve.