its got those two little slots on the ring just like the LL triplet but the LL one unscrewed fairly easy..can't budge the buhl(4" diameter)......

Build a spanner wrench using a wood and nails with the pointed end ground flat.

ummm .... I have no idea what a spanner wrench is..... oh, you mean like put two nails into a piece of wood spaced liked the slots and flatten the points to fit the slots? that would never have occurred to me.. sigh...excellent idea, thanks.... since the lens is pretty old is there anything that you can put on there to loosen the threads? preferably something that won't bother the lenses? wd40?

stupid question.....the lens ring unscrews counterclockwise right?

I did, regardless if wd40 affected the lens at all lubricating the threads made the surgery ALOT easier. There was no affect to the lens after I was done. Just shoot at the sides and protect your lens if your concerned. Oh, and btw, make sure you know which lens and spacers comes out first and in what position so you'd know which way and in what order they go back in. I placed the center lens backwards and on test fire I was getting blurred corners. After a day of going over the fresnels, lamp and such I realized I may had screwed up the order of the triplet lenses. So, I turned it around and there it was, clear as day.

hehe,...lefty loosey, righty tighty.

well, I was pretty sure it was normal, but with lenses who knows.... its all a mystery to me....
heck when I use my clamps, even though I know its backwards because the turny thing(crank?) is on the bottom it always takes a couple of tries before I get it right

thanks sim...yeah I remember seeing that in your plog..... well, I've gotten used to the way my brain
(mal)functions so I usually try to lay things down in the order they come out because notes don't help because I can't read my writing! oh for the day when I can just get a pc implanted in my brain.... would be nice to have some useful activity up there anyway!