Graham Phantom ceramic armwand 'twisted'?


Hi folks,

I've searched around for an answer to this but haven't found one, but apologies if it has been answered elsewhere.

A couple of years ago I acquired a secondhand Graham Phantom but have only just got round to mounting it on my Avid Acutus (SME mount).

I was using Feickert's Adjust+ to adjust the azimuth, and having difficulty getting the measurements to 'converge'. The best, but still suboptimal, position seemed to be with the azimuth adjustment turned all the way to the bottom, so that the arm pillar is leaning in decidedly.

On closer inspection, it looks like there could be a 'twist' in the armwand. Is this possible, and have there been any other reports of it? I have read about ceramic armwands breaking if they are dropped, but not twisting.

I have contacted Graham by email a number of times but with no reply. (I am in Finland so calling is not easy.) I see there is a very small Allen-headed grub screw on the underside of the armwand and I wonder whether I might be able to loosen that and turn the armwand to counter the twist, but this seems a bit haphazard.

Any thoughts, experiences and advice much appreciated.

Cheers,

Rich
uctpa08
Dear Rich,
For your own peace of mind it might be worth checking the geometry i.e. linearity of the arm with a straight edge or steel rule, at both the top and side to see if the thinner portion of the armtube is on axis? Someone may have stressed it accidentally?

Certainly the arm can present itself as something of an optical illusion at times whereby imagination can lead you to think it is bent or twisted when it is not. Hopefully not!

Kind regards,
Thanks for the replies. I did in the end hear from Bob Graham, as well as having a useful exchange with the UK distributor. According to the latter, this is a known fault with early versions of the mark 1 armwand, as a result of the jig being not correctly set up. Whether the devious owner of the arm was aware of this is not clear!

Rich