Good resource for reading up on how to do camera repairs?

[wilper]

Hi!

I'm just heading into film photography and have bought a couple of cheap cameras off Ebay. I thought it would be interesting to clean and adjust them myself, but I need some kind of book or blog or something that explains how to do repairs and cleaning of cameras in general. Or is there any good collection of service manuals?

The cameras were cheap, and loosing them to horrible accidents during the procedure wouldn't be a great loss. But of course it would be more satisfying to get good results.

The prime candidates are a Konica C35 which is very dirty, and an Olympus OM-10 which seems to work but has a very strange (lumpy?) feel to the film winding.

I found Goodman's articles on light seal replacements already. That may be step one and keep me occupied for a while, but after that I think I'll want to dig deeper.

 

[Steve Roberts]

Have a look at the Classic Camera Repair Forum
http://www.kyphoto.com/cgi-bin/forum/discus.cgi
A trawl of the archives will reveal all kinds of useful information. For printed matter, try to get hold of a copy of Thomas Tomosy's basic repair books. Get Vol 1 first and that will send you off in the right direction. Volume 2 is a little more advanced.

Steve

 

[Yashinoff]

I would suggest starting by tearing down and rebuilding something simple like a Ricohflex or an Argus C3. I'd steer clear of opening anything with electronics until I got a good grasp of dealing with the mechanical. I unfortunately made that mistake and opened an AE-1 years ago... whoops.

 

[benjiboy]

There are plenty of books on Amazon on the subject.

 

[paul ron]

Have a look at the Classic Camera Repair Forum
http://www.kyphoto.com/cgi-bin/forum/discus.cgi
A trawl of the archives will reveal all kinds of useful information. For printed matter, try to get hold of a copy of Thomas Tomosy's basic repair books. Get Vol 1 first and that will send you off in the right direction. Volume 2 is a little more advanced.

Steve

That is a great site. Be sure to look through the "article and manuals" sections. You'll find a ton of information there.

Also do some DIY searches on the internet. You'll find lots of articles n threads left by many people who have documented their experiances over the years.

Have fun, buy up a few junkers to experiament on. You'll also find yourself inventing tools for your new hobby as well as spending more money on this than you ever realised once you actually get cameras out of the graves n working again. It is addicting.

.

 

[removed account4]

http://www.amazon.com/Repair-Classic-Cameras-Photographers-Collectors/dp/0967207908

joe lippencott's book is pretty good

 

[wilper]

Thanks!

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

--

Not counting removing some oxidation from a battery compartment I did my first repair yesterday.

A Ricoh KR5 came in the mail, described by the seller to be in "good condition".

The viewfinder was black. And the shutter wouldn't fire. Film winder stuck.

It turned out the curtain had stuck in it's down position, with the mirror in the up position. Which explained the black viewfinder.

I gently helped the curtain to complete it's cycle, which resolved the stuck shutter and film winder.

The mirror had been glued to the top of the body by the decaying foam buffer at the top and looked nasty when I freed it.

So during an hour last night I cleaned the mirror and replaced the foam buffer. Good thing I had all the tools and materials I needed at home.

The view finder is still a bit on the dark side, but the camera seems to work now. I'll run a roll of film through it and see.

And some day I might have to investigate why the shutter had gotten stuck, if it happens again. But I did a hundred cycles yesterday and it never showed any problems. The times sound reasonably right as well, but I don't have any tools to measure them yet.

Also I'm curious what a camera that is in a worse than "good condition" from that seller looks like.