Light seal

An Ihagee plateholder leaks light in the upper left corner. How to fix?



By the way: this Ihagee plate holder (with Kodak film sheath) fits well on my Voigtländer Avus 9x12 camera. As it is a slightly loose fit, I'm not sure that an original Voigtländer plateholder would fit on an Ihagee.. just to let you know.

I use to remove the velvet light seals and scrape and blow away the dust from the adhesive. It's usually something like shellack, that by now is hard and brittle and easily creates dust in the velvet and holder. Then I use contact cement to glue the velvet back. When it has been worn like that I have taken good velvet from holders in otherwise bad condition. Recently, maybe one or two years ago, I bought a roll of back velvet with the correct width from German eBay to replace the really bad light seal in an Avus camera. It seems to work fine, but I haven't tried that camera yet.

If you look at German eBay, search for "samtband". You could also find it in a good sewing shop near you, if you are lucky. It's best to find it in the correct width than cutting it if you don't want tiny particles of velvet on your film. The thickness of the velvet is important too, for a good seal.

Takk, JPD.

Varsågod.

I too would exchange the velvet and cement the new one with contact cement, by spraying just the velvet with cement.

However velvet is a too general term. You should use cotton based velvet to reduce chance af static building up.
I assume the velvet tapes to be synthetic.

AgX said:

I too would exchange the velvet and cement the new one with contact cement, by spraying just the velvet with cement.

However velvet is a too general term. You should use cotton based velvet to reduce chance af static building up.
I assume the velvet tapes to be synthetic.

Click to expand...

I investigated the materials and synthetic keeps the fibres "straight" better. I'm not sure what they used for the original light traps, but the fibres seem stiffer than cotton.

AgX said:

However velvet is a too general term. You should use cotton based velvet to reduce chance af static building up.

Click to expand...

In this very case it even does not matter, as both casing and darkslide are from metal.

AgX said:

In this very case it even does not matter, as both casing and darkslide are from metal.

Click to expand...

Right. The new light seals I put in the Avus make it tighter so I have to use more force to slide the groundglass holder out and the film holders in, so I have to be careful so I don't move the camera too much. But these cameras also have the wire frame sports finder, so it should be ok. That camera has the Rietzschel Linear 120/4,8 lens, and it shall be interesting to test.