Valoy II focus

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Valoy II from e-bay auction. Tried to use it and discovered that it will not focus an image larger than about a 5x7. I realize that there is not an adjustment other the original fixed adjustments from the factory.

Anyone know what to do. I may not have all of the parts. Tried using lens extension from my Ic with negative carrier. The Valoy is in good condition. The condenser is milky (hope this is normal).

Thanks, hope it can be remedied

Mark
 
Moved this into a better section for you, more chance of a reply. Unfortunately I havent a clue.
 
The Valoy range were capable of printing from a range of negative sizes. There is a range of negative carriers and extension tubes to enable this.

It sounds as if you have only got half the kit - a full frame 35MM carrier but not the correct extension tube.

Just a thought what lens do you have? You should have a 50mm Varob or Focotar. have a close look at it, the extension tubes are a very tight fit and you may have a tube already fitted that you haven't noticed.
 
It might just be that the lens you have fitted is too long, i.e. meant for large or medium format negs. If I recall correctly you need about a 50mm lens for 35mm work and 85mm for medium format, if you use an 85mm or longer lens with 35mm film you won't be able to pull back enough to get a large print.
 
That could well be the case but the Valoy is an odd sort of device. It has no bellows and uses a helical focussing thingy.
That enables lenses to cover different neg sizes than is normally the case. Some later valoys used 40mm Focomat lenses with a different extension tube (to the one used on the 50mm lenses) and covered 35mm with no problems.

or it may be that 40 mm used a tube and 50mm didn't. the newest Valoy is probably 60 years old if not more, they were old when I started and my memory isn't as good as it was.

The focussing thingy can foul on some modern lenses and the right focal length lens may not cover as expected for that reason.
 
I have to say I was going by my own experience with a 'normal' enlarger so it's quite possible I'm talking rubbish as usual :)
 
Your comments re focal length/neg size/print size are spot on and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
But Valoys are strange devices and, as so often with leitz stuff, the answer that would be right for everything else isn't always the whole story.
 
Well I think that it must be a missing extension tube, probably. The lens that I tried to use with the enlarger is a EL Nikor 50mm and the Focotar 50mm by Leitz that fits the 1c. The Foctar lens has an extension tube for the auto focus.

Do the extension tubes fit into the black round deal where the lens fits. And is this black lens housing thing supposed to twist; helical focus function...
 
the Focomat enlarger used a cam system to autofocus, similar in principle to the cam system in the M cameras that coupled the lens to the rangefinder image. Whether the tube fitted to your focotar is part of the focomat autofocus or a valoy extension tube I don't know. More to the point i can't rememeber anything that might help you to find out.

If I remember correctly the extension tube for Valoys was about 15 to 20mm long. Any leica screw fit extension tube will do, they are all 39mm screw.

The black twisty thing should be the helical focus. Might be worth checking that it moves its full amount and hasn't got damage that is limiting the range.

Final point to check. leitz used to make an adaptor that fitted the screw mounting on the valoy and provided a bayonet connector to take the lens head from one or other of the collapsible elmar (or poss summitar/summicron) lenses. I have seen a valoy fitted with one of those to which a prevous owner had fitted a tube from a leitz close up device that converted the bayonet back to screw - with a lot of inadvertant and unwanted extension. fitting a lens with its own tube on top of that gave rise to problems just like yours.
 
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