keith_wright Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 I have an old 4x5 Speed Graphic that is great mechanically, has great bellows, but has lost the majority of the leather(ette) covering to the case/frame. Somewhere in the past I've seen one of these stripped of the leather covering and painted. It looked great, (kind of like Hasselblad's experiment with selling different colored cameras) and here in funky Austin it would fit right in. Anyhow, here's the question(s): First, this leather does not want to come off. Has anyone out there experimented with methods to remove? Disassembly is obviously a must, but then do you soak the leather covered parts for a few days in water, or is a more aggressive paint- remover method preferable? Then, do you need to sand-blast the thing to get it clean, or is the metal smooth underneath? As for resurfacing the whole thing with another layer of leather, I've tried that with another camera and had very little success. Thanks in advance for your advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_fromm1 Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 um, you might want to ask on the www.graflex.org help board, but first search the messages there. this is not a new question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacques_augustowski1 Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 Keith, The leather doesn't come out easily, I had to scrape it of, sand the wood and put a wood filler in the scratches. It was then painted with a urethane varnish. All the camera was striped out of unnecessary items, like shutter, view finder, screws and etc... The holes were filled with wood and planed to a level surface. The leather handle was put on top. The camera is now ultra light and can be mounted on an ordinary 35 mm tripod. If you want I can send you a picture of the camera. Jacques Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidv1 Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 Keith, This might be the Speed Graphic you're thinking of: http://www.cameraquest.com/nude.htm Maybe Stephen can tell you about the history of it? I thought I had seen a similar model on Jon Grepstad's page, but I can't find it now. Maybe later - I'm going out for a date now. Got to keep the priorities straight. Regards, David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_martucci Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 Have the perfect website for you on refurbishing it... http://home.online.no/~gjon/crown99.htm hope this is what you're looking for! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne_crider4 Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 I stripped a Crown Graphic not long ago. Used the following in this order; Denatured alcohol, Zylene and Acetone. The Zylene sem to do slightly better tha the denatured alcohol and evaporated the slowest. I used a scraper, let the fluid soak in a little and it seemed to come off ok. The denatured alcohol evaporated faster but did the job. I used the acetone as a cleanup removing the stubborn deposits. From there it's fill, sand and refinish although I'm planning on recovering mine do to holes that were patched in production or repair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thirteenthumbs Posted October 19, 2003 Share Posted October 19, 2003 MOSTENBOCKER'S LIFT OFF #2; (google it). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_grepstad1 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 <p>Please note that in October 2015 my webpages on building and modifying large format cameras move to: jongrepstad.com</p> <p>Jon Grepstad</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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