Graflex Conversion, Nuts and Bolts
Here is a quick tutorial on how the attach the 7 Allen head bolts to your
Graflex flash tube, using the custom washers and parts from my conversion
kit. A new full tutorial will be up as soon as I can get it going but till
now I hope this and the old tutorial will help. For drilling the bolt hole
pattern please see the old tutorial here:
Here is your end result with this parts kit it
should only take about 5 minutes at the most to screw the bolts into place
once you modify the washers. The modification is show bellow which itself should
only take a matter of minutes depending on what type of cutting tools you
have..
So from the kit we have these parts listed here:
* 7 Allen head bolts, custom
machined internal washers and nuts
In 4 out of the 7 holes this method
works perfect as you see bellow. The contoured washers sits perfectly
inside the tube and actually lends support to the frame so you can tighten
down the bolts and nuts as tight as you want without and odd bending of
the tube. And is also fast and easy to put together.
Now the onto the other 3 out of the 7
bolts that are a bit harder to put in and these are the ones you see on
top of the Graflex closest to the center band. At this point you will need
to modify a few of the parts in the kit yourself. And there are many tools
that will do this, and pedestal grinder, and disk sabers, a dermal tool,
or even a hacksaw and a vise. all you will be doing is cutting or grinding
the washers so that they will fit snug next to each other and give
clearance for assembly.
Bellow is one example of how these
aluminum washers can be ground to fit inside the tube with plenty of
clearance room on each side.
Now this will work great for the 2
outside bolts and nuts as they will fit in very nicely, but the middle bolt
is still a problem as there is not enough room for the center nut.
Now you can always glue or epoxy the
bolts into the tube or to the washers. But I have added one extra part
that will make this even easier to deal with if you still want to bolt
these in make it easy on yourself.
Bellow in the center you will see the
last part added to this bolt kit and it is a shorter and slimmer washer
that is similar to the others but made out of steel and is tapped in the
center so that no nut is required to secure this center bolt. From this picture
you can also se all of the modifications you will need to make. The top
row shows that the center bolt will need to be ground down a little for
clearance. The second row shows the parts in the unmodified condition. And
the bottom row shows the parts after modification.
You can now see that this final part
has solved the internal clearance problems that have arisen with this
build, and with just a small bit of effort.
Here is an example of how to modify
your washers as above, but still depending on what type of building tools
you might have. This picture shows the steel washer being modified by hand
with the use of a pedestal grinder.
WARNING: Be very cautious and wear
your safety glasses!
And your final result from the inside
view of your Graflex flash tube.
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