Lubitel focussing trouble

[Tom Deering <tdeering@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had so much fun with the siamesed Lubitel project until I found out my
lenses are not focussing together.  I'd appreciate advice from anyone.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the focussing wrong or not.  I know nothing about
this, so I made up the process that I used.  Basically,  I focussed both
viewing lenses at a brightly lit target five meters away.  I set the
distance scale to five meters on each.

Then I focussed each taking lens at the same target, set the gears to mesh,
and locked them at the 5 meter point. I put a small piece of ground glass
across the rollers and viewed the target through a 30x loupe.  It seemed
straight-forward to me.

Two problems.  1: One lens is radically wrong.  Way way off.  If the right
lens is in focus at 30 feet, the other is in focus at 10 feet.  Neither
match the distance scale.

2: The other problem is, the lenses look like they are not screwing
squarely on the threads.  They are not mis-threaded, they just look out of
kilter.  I don't know if this is related to #1 above or not.

Because of the way the Lubitel is designed, focussing this way is a royal
pain.  The tripod thread is the same piece of plastic that serves as the
back of the camera.  So you can't use the camera on a tripod with the back
open.  Very frustrating.

Compared to this hassle, twinning the shutters was a walk in the park.  Any
clues for me?

Happy holidays!

Tom