Recently took a gamble on buying an old lens that was being sold on the cheap with a note of "Shutter Speeds Inaccurate" and figured that even if a basic disassembly and cleaning didn't resolve the issue then $50 was still worth a clean set of Kodak Ektar 127mm f/4.7 lens elements, spare parts, and the pleasure of tinkering with some clockwork for an afternoon or two. - The lens might be barely enough for 4x5 coverage, but sounded like it could be an interesting lens for my Pressman when used in a more point-and-shoot journalistic style.
Package arrived and cosmetically things seem decent for what it is, and sure enough the shutter speeds were wonky and all over the place after a few tries. It appeared that the timing gears were getting skipped most of the time, maybe one in 5 releases holding open for the expected time. The close shutter stage was being tripped randomly without the delay, or at times only part way through the delay - Bulb and Time modes would fire the shutter, and then close soon after on its own. (I also noted that the cable release seemed to fair better than tripping the lever arm, failing maybe 1 in 3 times rather than 4 in 5 times, which seemed weird.)
Took the front element off to see what could be seen, appeared to be able to safely run the shutter, and it kept tripping early with no obvious sign of anything out of alignment. No apparent difference in times it held as expected or closed early.
Put the front element back on and played with tripping the shutter a few more times simply because I enjoy the sound, and suddenly it was working flawlessly... And it kept working fine, with all of the speeds ball-parking in the expected range. Haven't rigged up a proper accurate test, but bulb and time both decided they now want to play nice.
At a loss for what threading the front element back in could have done, it doesn't seem to add pressure anywhere or bridge anything with its threading, but it seems a reliable and consistent shutter was gained for the effort of threading something out and back in again...
On one hand I'm happy and amused that the issue seemed to be resolved with something as nearly as simple as "Turn it off and back on again", but at the same time I'm kind of disappointed that it proved that easy.
Package arrived and cosmetically things seem decent for what it is, and sure enough the shutter speeds were wonky and all over the place after a few tries. It appeared that the timing gears were getting skipped most of the time, maybe one in 5 releases holding open for the expected time. The close shutter stage was being tripped randomly without the delay, or at times only part way through the delay - Bulb and Time modes would fire the shutter, and then close soon after on its own. (I also noted that the cable release seemed to fair better than tripping the lever arm, failing maybe 1 in 3 times rather than 4 in 5 times, which seemed weird.)
Took the front element off to see what could be seen, appeared to be able to safely run the shutter, and it kept tripping early with no obvious sign of anything out of alignment. No apparent difference in times it held as expected or closed early.
Put the front element back on and played with tripping the shutter a few more times simply because I enjoy the sound, and suddenly it was working flawlessly... And it kept working fine, with all of the speeds ball-parking in the expected range. Haven't rigged up a proper accurate test, but bulb and time both decided they now want to play nice.
At a loss for what threading the front element back in could have done, it doesn't seem to add pressure anywhere or bridge anything with its threading, but it seems a reliable and consistent shutter was gained for the effort of threading something out and back in again...
On one hand I'm happy and amused that the issue seemed to be resolved with something as nearly as simple as "Turn it off and back on again", but at the same time I'm kind of disappointed that it proved that easy.
