I have had my friend Ted Rae’s ARRI 2B available for sale for a while now. Anyone who knows Ted knows that he is a perfectionist with his equipment, and he had a number of upgrades done to this camera. He had me install a proper light trap on the ground glass assembly so a 2C door could be used. Later, the folks as Visual Products put a PL hard front on the camera. He also added his custom tape hook and magazine port cover/top carry handle. After the many offers and questions I’ve had about this camera, last week someone committed to purchasing it. Before taking delivery, the customer and I did a full check of their existing catalog of PL mount lenses to see how they all worked on this camera.
My client has a very unique collection of several sets of lenses, and while we were checking everything out, we were happy to learn that all but one of the lenses worked perfectly. One lens stubbornly refused to properly seat and lock into the PL mount. My first thought was that the tabs on the PL mounts might have been a little too thick and were interfering with the lens seating all the way. I carefully measured the tabs on the lens, and did some very careful polishing. Next, I machined a slight ramp on the leading edge of the locking ring tabs. In the past, the handles on the PL mount locking ring have been just thick enough to interfere with some lenses, preventing them from mounting completely.
So, I removed the handles from the camera, made a little fixture to mount them to, and machined them on the lathe to make them thinner. I reassembled everything and tried the lens again, but I could still feel the lens rotating a tiny bit against the locator pin, telling me it isn’t sitting perfectly against the flange. The tabs and handles were no longer a concern, but a beauty ring on the back of the lens was hitting the locking ring before the lens was fully seated. I have never taken one of these lenses apart, and I don’t want to learn on a customer’s lens, so I stopped at this point. I am going to meet with the client today and see how they want to proceed.
