Cleaning a Bogen head

[kmcgrew]

My Bogen 3047 head has become a little sticky when tightening to the point

that I can't get the landscape/portrait control to tighten completely. The

sticky tightening permits the control to be a bit slippery, since it is not

fully tightened. The slightest bump and my Plaubel 4 x 5 will drop 5 degrees

or so to the right, forcing me to line everything up again.

 

Any ideas on how to clean the mechanism so it will tighten completely? I'm

getting back into LF photography and want to shoot what I sight in the finder.

[randall ellis]

Just to clarify, does the knob tighten all the way or does it spin and never tighten all the way? Also, when you move the head up and down, does the travel feel smooth or does it feel like it catches in one (or more) places?

 

- Randy

[kmcgrew]

The knob tightens, but I can see "unused" threads. I don't know if a little WD-40 is the trick of if that would cause corrosion problems.

 

It's not the center post that's the issue. There are three movements on the head: horizontal pan from the bottom; vertical pan from the back center; and what I called the "landscape/portrait control" on the front right. It is the latter that sticks.

[brian_ellis16]

Can't you just remove the handle, clean the threads on it and the threads in the hole it goes into, maybe with Q Tips dampened in almost any kind of cleaner, dry both, and see what happens? From what you're saying I'm not sure dirt is the problem but cleaning these parts of a 3047 head (I have one, I remove the handles all the time when packing the tripod for travelling) just to see if that fixes the problem doesn't sound like a difficult project.

[William Kahn]

Brian is right. You probably have dirt accumulated in the threads that's preventing the handle from locking down all the way. CLA! Well, C, anyway....

[chuck_pere]

Not sure if I had the same problem but I removed the Bogan decal from the front. Under it is an Allen head screw. I tighten the screw and it solved my problems. May be worth a look at. I believe my problem was it wouldn't tighten down properly no matter how hard I turned the knob.

[paul dematty]

I've found that a little lubrication of the threads and thrust washers on the handles of both of my Bogen pan-tilt heads (3030 & 3039) help in tightening things down. Vaseline will work, but I like Sil-Glyde, available at Pep Boys -- yup, that's what I said! It comes in a plastic toothpaste-type tube, and works great on a lot of different things. If your adjustment is 'bottoming out', then Chuck's pointer, above, might be the ticket. Good luck.

[rick_v]

Chuck, how did you remove that decal? I think I have the same problem. The "decal" part is loose, and can cause the horizontal to shift about 5 degrees to either side. I'm looking at a metal Bogen logo with the degrees marked from -30 to 90, and it seems cemented down to a black plastic disc under that. No idea how to remove it, but it seems like that's where I'd find an allen head bolt to tighten.

[rick_v]

ah, I think I found the answer:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00DcmG

 

Now I just have to find some allen keys ...