What lens board do I need for this lens?

[Keith]

It's raining here today which tends to make you fiddle with cameras that you normally ignore ... which brings me to this question!

A while ago I bought a very old and very beautiful Zeiss 16.5cm Jena lens with a Compur shutter in the classifieds with the intention of putting it on my Crown Graphic for portraits. I'll need a lens board for it of course but what do I need ... do I just get another standard Graphic board and machine the hole out to 55mm or is there something specific I should be looking for that will have the correct sized hole?

[venchka]

I would match the boards I already had. Or, match a Crown Graphic board and make the hole the proper size. Since you need a fairly large hole, any Crown board with a smaller hole would work. I think. Better wait for a Crown person who actually knows to confirm or tell us that I am all wet.

[Al Kaplan]

Back in Ancient Times you'd take the lens to your friendly neighborhood camera repairman and be done with it...LOL. He'd even mount a solenoid release on the board so you could use the push button on the back of your Graflex flash battery case to trigger the shutter. (Return to the 21st century...) The two possibilities are that the shutter has a screw-on retaining ring or comes with a flange that can be screwed to the front of the board, but can also be used behind the board as a retaining ring. The easiest thing with a metal board is cut a reasonably neat hole big enough to insert the shutter's threaded section through the hole, then screw the retaining ring or flange on from the rear until it's snug. Use a screw driver against one of the notches in the retaining ring or a screw hole in the flange to get it nice and snug.