VINTEN VISION 22 HEAD REPAIR.

[Robert Hart]

For those who have curiosity in Vinten Vision 22 repair work.

The baseplate lock tongue slides in a milled space. On my specimen which has lived a hard life, the casting had cracked upwards and the lock wouldn't work. The entire cracked section was removed and the piece was duplicated in new metal.

The matching section was milled out to original design using the broken-out piece as a reference. This replacement piece was secured with four screws in holes tapped into the metal after a shallow relief was milled out. The available depth for drilling and tapping screw threads is marginal and the parent metal is soft. It looks flimsy but works fine.

 

[Robert Hart]

A small postscript to the Vinten 22 story. The tilt friction never really worked right. It certainly did not manage ground-to-air follows of aircraft in flight. The pan friction is better.

To better match the Vinten to my gold standard for aircraft follows, a really old Miller head, I have added a felt ring in compression inside the nylon ring of the adjustable tilt friction. I initially tried a felt ring which worked against the alloy centre and not the polished surface, However this introduced "stiction" which is no good for follows when the subject reverses direction.

I have dressed a silicone grease into the felt ring. So far this added friction area seems to have brought the friction damping closer to that of the Miller. Hopefully the felt disk will endure. It works against a highly polished surface so should not wear away quickly.

The tilt friction adjustment seems to have only a slightly wider range of effect.