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ektarama
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THE BODY: UNDER THE ESCUTCHEON PLATES
THE BODY: UNDER THE ESCUTCHEON PLATES

Visible in the relieved area for the upper roller control on the left is a crescent shaped bright mark. This is because the plate was pushed in far enough that a gear was in contact with the wood. Yes, Graflex cameras are made almost entirely out of wood and were made this way until the very last model, the "Super Graphic" which followed the design of the Busch Model D Pressman, formed out of lightweight metal. See my Sears Tower Pressman version of the Busch here: www.flickr.com/photos/ektarama/145901965/

The body is made of fine grain mahogany, covered with an exotic (and amazingly long lived) Morocco leather covering.
The two geared shafts visible are the upper and lower roller shaft ends. These gears engage with the upper and lower roller tensioning mechanisms, built into the escutcheon plates.

A slot can be seen in the end of the shaft on the right. This roller has an internal spring which is tensioned via turning a screwdriver to create the tension necessary for the shutter roller to perform it's function.

The shutter of the Graflex camera is a continuous piece of rubberized cloth about 3 feet long with 4 metal lined slits of various widths in it, cleverly distributed along the length so that when the shutter lever is released, no two are in the rear opening of the camera at the same time, and further, the upper control has a stop that limits the curtain travel to exactly the right distance so that the next slit does not arrive in the field of view.

The basic idea is that a wider slit creates a longer exposure than a narrow slit as the shutter curtain travels downward in front of the film, as long as the curtain travels at the same speed. The lower speed selector can place additional tension to the roller spring, propelling the shutter curtain at different speeds, giving the possibility of 6 more variations in shutter speed for every slit opening, 24 speeds in all.
Simple!
The vertical shutter is also the reason that in early photos of moving motor cars the wheels sometimes appear oval shaped. How cool is that.

The slit selector also has a 'T' setting that brings up a full width slit that allows timed exposures either from the back shutter, or because this camera has been fitted with a front shutter, it can be left open so the front shutter can be used. When the front shutter is used one needs to make sure that the darkslide in whatever film holding device that is attached to the camera is in place when the T setting is engaged, and that the lens shutter is also closed when the darkslide is ultimately removed to expose the film in the holder.

There is a '0' setting that is a fully blocked rear shutter.
When not in use, I think it is a very good idea to leave the upper selector at 0 and the lower selector at 1, so there is minimal tension on the spring.
See next photo www.flickr.com/photos/ektarama/6814654760/in/photostream/

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Taken on: March 5, 2012
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