Ilex #5 Shutter - Lagging Blades Question

AZD · 2025-08-15T21:39:16-0400

Today I looked at a lens for sale. It’s in an Ilex #5 shutter, and the blades are sluggish on the closing action. It seems to work fine otherwise, but it doesn’t reach anywhere near its 1/50th max speed.

Now I happen to be handy enough, so I looked inside my own Kodak 12” f4.5 with the same shutter. It appears - appears… - that a thick piano wire spring may be responsible for snapping the blades shut. Can anyone here confirm whether it is in fact the spring shown below? Seems like a relatively easy repair.

AZD · 2025-08-15T21:46:33-0400

You know, I really should get my prescription updated. Turns out it’s a smaller spring a few inches away. Even better, BTW, as it’s within the size of a thick unwound guitar string. They make great springs.

F4U · 2025-08-15T22:01:03-0400

The spring in the top photo is no good. I would not buy this shutter. Guitar strings make FAIR springs, Not good ones.

AZD · 2025-08-16T10:27:05-0400

Just to clarify, the pictures are of my working shutter which I opened up for reference. The blades on this one are snappy and quick to move.

F4U · 2025-08-16T10:48:43-0400

Sorry. I just saw those slight bends in the big spring and assumed... But anyway, these shutters bear a similiarity with the Betax and getting a true 1/50 of a second is just not possible. I have a Betax #4. I consider it a 2 speed shutter. Maybe 3 at best. So I checked it with my tester and write down what they actually are and use the aperture control to get accurate exposure. And with X ray film and yellow green filter, you're always going to be down at 1/2 second most of the time anyway.

Erik L · 2025-08-16T11:03:54-0400

Those shutters are very simple to cla. It might just need to be taken apart (take pics of each step of the process so as not to get confused putting it back together) and clean everything well and reassemble. It might be all that is needed to get it back to working order without messing with making new springs.

Dwayne Martin · 2025-08-16T11:39:50-0400

I’m with Eric on this one. It’s quite possible that someone gummed things up with some sort of lubricant. Probably just needs cleaning. I would say it’s un likely anything is wrong with the springs. I use ground graphite on my blades. I just did this very thing to a Ilex 5 last night…

retina_restoration · 2025-08-16T12:04:44-0400

Erik L said:
Those shutters are very simple to cla. It might just need to be taken apart (take pics of each step of the process so as not to get confused putting it back together) and clean everything well and reassemble. It might be all that is needed to get it back to working order without messing with making new springs.

I'm 99.5% certain that you'll find there's nothing wrong with the springs — it's just that some components need cleaning. Something, somewhere is sticky.

ic-racer · 2025-08-16T12:25:53-0400

As mentioned, usually one measures the speeds before and then after disassembly and cleaning. The speeds obtained after cleaning are the ones to be used for exposure calculation. Mainsprings are not that easy to recreate. So, if the shutter is slow after cleaning, fine, just use the measured speeds for exposure calculation.

retina_restoration · 2025-08-16T13:18:08-0400

ic-racer said:
As mentioned, usually one measures the speeds before and then after disassembly and cleaning. The speeds obtained after cleaning are the ones to be used for exposure calculation. Mainsprings are not that easy to recreate. So, if the shutter is slow after cleaning, fine, just use the measured speeds for exposure calculation.

+1

Ilex #5 Shutter - Lagging Blades Question

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