Meopta Flexaret CLA?

[Stephanie Brim]

Anyone know of people who can do this? I actually need the thing recovered AND CLA'd...may be cheaper to just buy another one, but I like this one. I got it in a box of cameras that I paid $30 for...I have a special place in my heart for it.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

A bump for this to the front page before I go to sleep. ANY information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nick Zentena]

There used to be a guy on Ebay from the Slovaka republic. But like you say between shipping and the work it would be cheaper to buy one he has already fixed up.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Maybe I should just skip it and get a Yashica Mat 124...blah. I just didn't want to spend an arm and a leg.

 

[Greg_E]

What's wrong with it besides the leather? There was a recent thread on the camera-fix Yahoo group trying to find info to get to the shutter. Apparently they use a helicoid focus instead of the more widely used Rollei style. Anyway, most CLA are $40 to $75 depending on who does it. You might consider trying it yourself, how much do you have to lose if you fail, and how much information would you gain if it worked.

Normal camera leather will cost a bit, but you might want to get some .3 to .5 mm leather scrap from ebay and do the recover yourself. The scraps normally go for about $10 or less. Goatskin is a little more firm than lambskin, but the lamb does feel nice. I have a bright red Yashica 635 done in a thicker lamb that I recetly finished servicing.

 

[Jerevan]

If I were you, I'd ask over at http://nelsonfoto.com/v/index.php and see if anyone over there might help you out. Maybe you can find someone who might do a CLA for you or might give you some idea of where to look for it.

 

[SAShruby]

I have one Flexaret VI, fully functional and one Flexaret VI for parts. But 30$ is not enough. Meopta is a producer of Flexaret, I do not think, they do CLA's, and if they do, it would be very expensive.

I can sell you my Flexaret if you want. Or you can find some on Ebay.de or com.

If you have special thing for your Flexaret, put it in the special place then and do not shoot. Buy one you can shoot with.

 

[Nathan Smith]

Re-covering, unlike recovering (well, from my experience anyway), is not hard and is actually kind of fun if you're, uh, detail oriented shall we say. You can get self-adhesive leatherette from micro-tools.com, or exotic stuff from cameraleather.com. I use a method I found on the net: put blue masking tape (get a wide roll) on the camera, cut to fit using a sharp exacto knife. Then transfer the tape to your leatherette and cut around your blue tape template with scissors. When you put it on the camera you'll use your exacto knife again to make it fit exactly. Looks great and doesn't take long.

Assuming that by CLA you just need the shutter fixed up, you might contact our own (there was a url link here which no longer exists). She specializes in LF shutters, but has been known to do others, like this one, that also have leaf shutters. She does excellent work at a very reasonable price.

Nathan

 

[Steve Smith]

I have a Flexaret somewhere (I think I lent it to someone). Just after I got it, I noticed that the shutter blades moved a bit and stayed slightly open every time the shutter was cocked.
Being curious, I took it apart but couldn't work out what the problem was but I did notice that the shutter mechanism looked a bit like the one I had off of an Agfa Isolette so I did a shutter transplant. The bit with the aperture blades is still Flexaret whilst the bit with the shutter mechanism is now Agfa. How I managed to screw it all together whilst all of the blades stayed in place I will never know but I did manage it after two or three attempts.
It looks odd now as the lens assembly is now rotated 90 degrees (the flash socket has to fit in a recess) but it works.
With hindsight and more recently gained knowledge, I expect I could repair it now quite easily without having to transplant parts.


Steve.