I just disassembled my first camera!

photomem · Nov 26, 2009

I received a Brownie Hawkeye Flash from an eBay purchase today and while the shutter worked for a bit, when I was playing with it tonight, it jammed. I took it apart, looked at it, and found that one little spring was out of alignment. I replaced it, oiled it up, and it works like new. I have some Fuji Acros 100 in it for Turkey Day tomorrow. Hope it continues to work!

Steve Smith · Nov 26, 2009

Disassembly is the easy bit. It's the re-assembly which can be tricky. You either get a working camera or a box of spares. In your case, it worked out well!

Steve.

Steve Roberts · Nov 26, 2009

Steve Smith said:
Disassembly is the easy bit. It's the re-assembly which can be tricky. You either get a working camera or a box of spares. In your case, it worked out well!

Steve.

Yes, as Steve says, you usually either win or lose - draws are very rare.
I've had (and continue to have) a mixture of fun and frustration repairing cameras. Fortunately by far the majority of faults turn out to be something simple once a few hours have been invested in tracking down the problem. Misplaced springs, foam that's gone to gue, dried out lubrication, over-lubrication (usually from would-be fixers who fire WD40 into the works and hope for the best), etc.. A good website that's well worth a look if only to see some of the problems and solutions that crop up is: http://www.kyphoto.com/cgi-bin/forum/discus.cgi in particular the Maintenance and Repair section.

Steve

markbarendt · Nov 26, 2009

As I remember, a Brownie on Turkey Day 40+ years ago, was my very first experience as a "Photographer".

Thanks for bringing my memory back.

photomem said:
I received a Brownie Hawkeye Flash from an eBay purchase today and while the shutter worked for a bit, when I was playing with it tonight, it jammed. I took it apart, looked at it, and found that one little spring was out of alignment. I replaced it, oiled it up, and it works like new. I have some Fuji Acros 100 in it for Turkey Day tomorrow. Hope it continues to work!

paul ron · Nov 26, 2009

OK everyone, take out your old cameras n post em for sale, we got another DIY junkie on the line.

Welcome to the club. Before you know it, you'll be spending your rent money for junkers, lurking e-bay n classifieds. Closet full of cameras n parts.

Christopher Walrath · Nov 26, 2009

You poor, poor, poor fool.

removed account4 · Nov 26, 2009

yeah, it is a lot of fun doing that
always find a junker to snag parts from
.. its like having a vdub on blocks in the woods
behind your house, as long as you aren't going
for heat channels, or seals you are in business

Valerie · Nov 26, 2009

Now you need to buy another one, so you can take it apart and flip the lens.

photomem · Nov 26, 2009

This one was purchased to do a flipped lens treatment on. I just wanted to shoot one roll of black and white through it before I did so. And, this is the extent of my camera buying until after the end of the year.. I think.

removed-user-1 · Nov 26, 2009

I've fixed a few cameras over the years but usually give complex tasks to the repair techs. For extra fun, try taking apart a lens to repair the aperture coupling lever... and then trying to get all the lenses back in the same way they came out. My favorite was taking the parts of two non-functional Yashica 635 35mm adapters to make one working one. Happy happy, joy joy!

photomem said:
And, this is the extent of my camera buying until after the end of the year.. I think.

Famous last words...

brian d · Nov 26, 2009

this is the extent of my camera buying until after the end of the year.. I think.

see post # 6

mwdake · Nov 26, 2009

I am an expert at taking them apart.
I just wish I was as good at putting them back together again.

ic-racer · Nov 26, 2009

photomem said:
I received a Brownie Hawkeye Flash from an eBay purchase today and while the shutter worked for a bit, when I was playing with it tonight, it jammed. I took it apart, looked at it, and found that one little spring was out of alignment. I replaced it, oiled it up, and it works like new. I have some Fuji Acros 100 in it for Turkey Day tomorrow. Hope it continues to work!

Good job. You are on your way to becoming an analog photography survivor. Being able to keep the equipment in working order is essential.

mtjade2007 · Nov 27, 2009

A broken camera is already a pile of spare parts. What will you lose by taking it apart but fail to fix it? None. It's of course a different story by buying a broken camera then trying to fix it to save money.

Well, I did it once. I had a Contax RTS-2 that need some repair. I decided to buy another broken one for parts to repair mine myself. I hit a deal on the flea bay. It was a deal of two broken RTS-2, not just one. When I received them and put in a new battery one of the two actually showed no sign of malfunction whatsoever. I have enjoyed using it ever since. The other one remains as a broken one. I have yet to take the time to take it apart and use the parts to repair mine. I am really on a cross road now. The 2nd one from the flea bay looks better than mine. I am not sure I should use it for parts. I really should use mine as parts. Perhaps I should get another broken one as parts to repair both. I guess this is a dangerous route to take. I may get many more and unwilling to use any of them for parts. I may end up with a huge pile of spare parts.

photomem · Nov 27, 2009

I am already considering finding a couple of Brownie Hawkeyes. One to flip the lens and another to have for spares.

Steve Roberts · Nov 27, 2009

mtjade2007 said:
I hit a deal on the flea bay. It was a deal of two broken RTS-2, not just one. When I received them and put in a new battery one of the two actually showed no sign of malfunction whatsoever. .

I've just bought a Pentax Electro Spotmatic (full script prior to shortening to "ES") in the same way. It was described as having a dud meter, but on arrival I fitted a battery and found it to work fine, only needing the usual foam and seals replacing. I have a suspicion that the seller had tried to put the battery in the way it's orientated in the subsequent ES whereas it actually goes into the body the other way around on the Electro Spotmatic (which was said to have been a testing-the-water/prototype to see how the Japanese market liked an automatic SLR). The Electro Spotmatic was said to have been notoriously prone to problems which is not surprising as the circuit board in the base is something else, having numerous surface-mount transistors and no integrated circuits that I can see. It's a wonder that it ever made it into later production as the much better ES and ESII.

Steve

I just disassembled my first camera!

removed-user-1

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