Graflex.org

[ccgrafix]

I just bought a 2 1/4 X 3 1/4 Speed graphic like one I owned in the fifties. It came with the Graflex flash but no synchronizer solenoid or cords. Do you know where I might find one?

The lens is a 101mm Optar by Wollensak and the solenoid mounts on the vertical at the upper right side of the lens board. Any help or info including alternate synchronizer devices would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim D.

[alecj]

[alecj]

For the record, he was right. It's a Miniature Speed Graphic [there were no 2x3 Anniversary models] and, looking from the front, the solenoid is used at a 45 deg. angle on the top left, [top right from behind the camera] with the bracket attached to the upright. Looks real neat!

[ This Message was edited by: alecj on 2004-03-04 05:51 ]

[t.r.sanford]

I, too, have always seen synchronizers mounted horizontally above the shutter on miniature "Speed Graphics."

There were a lot of "mechanical" synchronizers around in the '50s, and some may still be out there. The simplest is a device that screws into the cable release socket and has a PC contact on the side. The difficulty with this kind is that you cannot use a cable release, or the body release on a "Pacemaker."

Kodak made a better one, that would accept a cable release. I seem to recall Kalart and Graflex offering similar appliances; perhaps some of the historians on this site would recall the details.

There also was a kind that screwed onto the lensboard. It worked with set-and-release shutters, and was a squat cylinder with bipost synch contacts on the front and a short length of flat spring emerging from one side. You oriented the thing so that spring would be struck by the shutter tensioning lever when the shutter was released; this closed an internal contact and fired the flash.

The one I had worked very well for many years, but I'm not sure how I'd go about mounting one on the very small lensboards of the miniature "Graphics."