Conventional Fixtures Leko 25/50 (#2205) Spare Parts Nowhere to be Found.

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Hello to everyone in the Control Booth!

This forum is fantastic, I've been sleuthing around the topics and the wiki the last couple of days and I've joined in search of a little aid. I'm hoping someone out in the community can help me out.

I've been trying to source spare parts for some old Lekozoom 25/50's but to no avail. More specifically I'm looking for 4-way shutters, yoke handles and a lamphead. Strand no longer services parts for the fixtures, and they have no idea where a hidden stash might be.

At this point unused parts are not really necessary, but if I could find them it would be more valuable than gold.

Maybe one of you has some gathering dust somewhere, or knows of a dealer that's been holding onto them for too long.

Please let me know of any leads I could follow, I'd like to buy them up as soon as possible.

Thanks so much for reading, and thank-you for this great forum.

 

[derekleffew]

Is this the fixture in question?


1. Lamp cap. I see S/C #'s 2123, 2113, 2112, 2216, 2212, 2209, 2204 on eBay all the time. They all use the same lamp cap. Not terribly long ago, I believe there was a lot of ten or twelve lamp caps up for auction--I don't remember the price or outcome. You're probably going to want to put a new TP-22 socket in whatever you buy. One of our members may be liquidating a bunch of these fixtures soon. Perhaps he has extra lamp caps or other parts.

2. Knobs. Try Knobs Direct. Seriously. They're a good company and reasonably priced.

3. Shutters. This will be the most difficult. But a good metal shop should be able to fabricate at a not unreasonable cost.

 

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That is the fixture, however it's a 2205, not any of the others that you mentioned. I'm still pretty unfamiliar with the line, so would the lamp cap for those models also fit this model?


I'm checking out Knobs Direct as we speak and it may be able to fill my needs, but they would probably be the last part of my search, especially since the shutters are the main find I'm trying to land.

The metal shop might be a good route, I'd just have to get hold of one shutter as an example. Not entirely sure how I'd be able to do that yet.

Thanks for the quick reply

 

[derekleffew]

See Strand Archive - Leko Range for the range I mentioned. The lamp caps are the only common parts, I believe. The fixed focal length models were much more popular than the zooms. I've never used your model, so am not sure how to replace the shutters, but it doesn't look easy. They may have to be removed from the inside, ala the 360Q, which was discussed here:

...Shutters are really easy to replace, drill out the shutter handle/fiber washer (hold the thing with Vise Grips while drilling,) and grind away or drill away the rivet. Once done, remove the gate from the fixture and slide out the shutters. Easy project. Slip the new ones in (wipe away some of the oil coating on the new ones), re-install the gate (use a Sharpie to do a witness mark on it and the fixture as to its alignment), and rivet the new often fiber/plastic handles onto the shutter. Use 5/32" aluminum with aluminum shank rivets of about 5/16" and less grip range on them unless of the 1/8" style which requires a smaller aluminum rivet. Use of steel rivets makes for too much tension on the fiber or plastic handles and tends to tear them up. This also assumes a double fiber washer on each shutter - otherwise a 3/16" grip range rivet would be suitable.

The shutter has had no major improvement since the 1960's. Graphite up old ones that are not deflected and burned, or anvil pound flat and fiber grinder wheel if not even soft cloth wheel out your somewhat good shutters. Most important part of a shutter is the blade edge. If it's not so good, it's possible to grind a new edge on it as long as once you are done it's perfectly flat and has no abrasive edge to it which will rip up with the heat. On an average shutter, you can probably loose 1/4" of shutter edge before you start to loose the ability to control the light with it. But it's only useful for shutters that are not hugely bad. Should you use a steel with a sort of grain to it, have that grain run parallel to the blade edge.

If really careful in saving money, you can save the fiber washer handles and re-use them as long as you use rivet washers for most of them which gain expanded holes. That will save some cash.

Otherwise while not very expensive, try having someone make shutters for you in copying one. At one point early on I cut some aluminum Colortran Mini-Ellipse shutters out of 5/64" aluminum plate. Wasn't perfect, but they lasted a sufficient amount of time. Better would be stainless steel for a shutter. Overall, a shutter is not in an absolute sense very difficult to make even out of steel flashing. Primary concern is that blade edge having a perfectly flat and smooth surface. In laying out a shutter, perhaps lay them out so the edge is the factory edge of the flashing and you are in good shape.

For a tempory and cost effective fix, why not look into making some of your own. Somewhere between say 16ga steel shelf dividers to a steel shelving unit - popular way back and often tossed in the trash these days which are now scrap steel, any flat steel you find, aluminum or steel flashing, heat duct work, a pie tin, and in general stainless steel plate (difficult to cut and drill but the best), you can at very least come up with some metal that in one degree or another should take the heat for at least some amount of shows before you have to replace them. Heck, make extras. Key is that flat blade edge and you can for the most part fudge up to 1/16" thick or 16ga steel material making up the shutters.

Have a look at your gate plates and divider plates while replacing them. Buff them shiny again and lay on a heavy coating of spray graphite (wipe off the extra after it sets up.) ...

Only real difference is the phenolic handle on the Strands instead of fiber washers. And I disagree with ship in saying it's easy. Sounds pretty time-consuming and laborious to me.

 

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Unfortunately none of those match my 2205, and the lamp caps are all curved while I'm looking for something flat. I might just be out of luck entirely.

As for making the shutters, I would have to outsource them rather than doing them myself, and I certainly couldn't have them improvised with say, a pie tin

Thank-you so much for your knowledgable input. I might have to give up my search unless someone miraculously lets me know about a large stash of shutters in their basement.

It's times like right now that I wish Strand hadn't been eaten by the bigger fish.. that entire side of their customer service and product line experience just went right out the window with it.

 

[derekleffew]

Unfortunately none of those match my 2205, and the lamp caps are all curved while I'm looking for something flat. I might just be out of luck entirely. ...

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other. You originally said "lamphead", which I interpreted as "lamp cap". Is this the part you need?

As far as I know, they're interchangeable between the 2205 and all the other models.

... It's times like right now that I wish Strand hadn't been eaten by the bigger fish.. that entire side of their customer service and product line experience just went right out the window with it. ...

Many/most will argue that Strand-US has always offered poor customer service, particularly their propensity toward abandoning product lines and not making parts available. (Working for a dealer, I had difficulty getting parts for these Lekolites in the 1980s, when the fixtures were still current). Word is their customer service has actually improved as of late. We have a couple of Strand employees, and ex-Strand employees, as members.

 

[SteveB]

PM me your phone or e-mail

I have about 100 of the Strand 2000 series Lekolites, 6x9, 6x12 series that use the same cap as the unit in Dereks post. We are supposed to be getting rid of these fixtures in Dec./Jan and if I can I'll try to salvage some caps and shutters.

Steve Bailey
Brooklyn College

 

[David Ashton]

take a shutter to your local laser cutting company, mine can supply me with shutters at half the price of spare parts and in 3 days not 12 months, or 4 years it once took Strand to deliver on Patt 23 parts, a small local foundry will often copy parts for you, again you may find them very cheap and quick.

 

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This is the lamp cap which I believe matches the fixtures I'm looking to service. derekleffew, I'm noticing some differences between our two pictures, would they still work?

As for past customer service; we've mostly dealt with Strand out of Toronto before now, and it was a lot smoother before we had to go through Dallas.



SteveB, I've sent you my e-mail address in a PM, hopefully this works out.

David, if I had a shutter to start from, it would make that process a little easier.

 

[church]

shutters from other fixtures will often can often be used with other manufacturers equipment in practice most shutters are very similar in size.

Alternatively the shutters are easily made with a set of air shears which can be purchased for around $30 these days, just buy some stainless sheet from a metal supplier mark out the shape by copying around an old shutter and then cut it out. With air shears there is no distortion and with a steady hand the edge is straight enough for the shutter to work. I usually river a piece of masonite onto the shutter as the handle

 

[derekleffew]

Well, I'll be darned! I never knew the 2205 used a different socket. Is it infact a minican screwbase? Does the fixture use EVR lamps? If so, the fixture (like the much-maligned Berkey-Colortran MiniEllipse) is not worth refurbishing. Output is dismal.

So you have no shutters at all?

Replace them at once with Source Four jr or Source Four jr Zooms. Or even Altman 3.5Q s. Trust me, you'll be happier.

 

[David Ashton]

If you can cut shutters out of stainless with air shears, you've got a much better shears than I can buy or much worse stainless steel, I have tried but the stainless is extremely hard to cut, it "bends" into the shears and never works for me.

 

[Lotos]

PM Sent...

 

[Les]

If you end up having to make shutters from scratch with no original, I'd suggest using poster board as a template. Disassemble your fixture's gate, and determine the shape you need. Cut it out and install it (with your fixture off ) as if it's a real shutter. If it needs to be altered, you can easily do this since it's poster board. Take the finished template to a foundry or machine shop and say "I need THIS in stainless steel".

Try to get a thicker gauge than originally supplied, and the more they can polish the material the better. Buy some fiber washers from Altman, rivet them in place with aluminum rivets and bada-bing!

 

[derekleffew]

A lot of fifteen units of the big brother (#2206) of the fixture in discussion is currently on eBay.


Due to the size and weight of many stage lighting fixtures, often the cost of shipping exceeds their actual value, except to a collector.

 

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Hey guys,

Lotos is in my area and I've put it down to; if he can't help, no one can.

Thanks again for all of your input, but I'm probably not going to pursue this any further. Newer fixtures will probably be chosen to replace the old ones, they need updating anyways.