Rolleiflex 3.5, 1956 - questions, advice, opinions

Hello all!

I have a Rolleiflex 3.5, Xenotar lens, serial number dating it 1956. I purchased it off of the bay in 2016 and had it serviced by Aperture in London at the same time. It has traveled with me back and forth from London to Texas many times.

1st question. At the end of last year, the shutter began to stick on all speeds. Since I currently don't have the money to have it serviced, it's been sitting in its case on the shelf. Today I took it out, just to give it a once over, and the shutter is firing perfectly. What could be the cause of that?

2nd question. As I've recently got into developing my own film and making my own prints, I think it's time that I also learn how to service my own tools. Is there a gold standard manual on assembling and servicing the Rolleiflex on my own? Is this even advisable?

3rd question. If servicing the camera myself is completely misguided, how often should a Rolleiflex go in for a service of CLR after it's been cleaned by a reputable professional?

Thank you so much and I look forward to becoming a member of this community!

1. Could be due to temperature, when it's warm, the sticky lubricants might get more liquid.
2. I thing in general it's a great idea, but starting with a Rolleiflex is a very very bad idea. Fish something cheap and broken out of the bay to practice. You'll need lots of patience and a little bit of talent for this sort of thing. Be prepared for some failures.

1. Yes, it could be temperature. A member on another forum had a Rolleicord with problems with the film counter. It wouldn't lock in place for each frame. I suggested that he could put that side of the camera in a window facing the sun for a while. And that helped. The sticky grease became more like oil and moved out from the sticky part of the mechanism. That is, of course, a temporary solution and more luck than a repair. A good cleaning would have been best. Another reason, in your case, could be dust or debris that made the shutter slow and that it moved out of the way for some reason, and made the speeds run fine again.

2. I don't recommend it. The Rolleiflex is very complicated, and so is the Synchro-Compur shutter.

3. For a professional user a CLA by a professional repairman every five to ten years is good. But for an amateur it's better, and more economical, to wait until the camera develops problems. And many repairmen today use synthetic lubricants that don't dry out or become sticky for many many years. So if you take good care of it the camera could work fine for 25+ years.

Yes, temperature could be the answer.
You say that camera was “cleaned”, but you don’t say CLAed. Just what did you ask your well qualified repairman to do? Did you tell them you didn’t want to spend much money? A Rollei is a robust instrument and should give years of trouble free service. I would save my pennies, bit the bullet, and get a thorough CLA.
Among the pleasures found reading APUG are the threads by people who fix and restore equipment. I learn a lot about the complexity of cameras, shutters, etc. I don’t believe any of them do this to save money, (even if some say they do) but rather because they are born tinkerers who really enjoy what they do. As for myself, I leave camera repair to the best repairman.

1. Yes. The fluctuation between Texas and London climates would certainly impact the lubricants in the shutter. It could liquefy them in a hot climate, allowing them to migrate around and then re solidify then in the cooler climate. Once the lube becomes mobile, then even gravity can displace the stuff; flowing into areas over extended periods of time. The bad thing about leaf shutters is, once they misbehave due to contamination, they are never really absolutely trustworthy again until they are fully cleaned again.

2. Not that camera. Some more common old rangefinder or TLR is worth a shot, but the value of this camera makes it not a good idea.

3. If you use the camera for professional work, I'd say every 5 years. If you are using it for non-commercial use, when it displays irregular shutter speeds; whenever that happens.

Thanks for the answers so far, I really appreciate it.

guangong said:

Yes, temperature could be the answer.
You say that camera was “cleaned”, but you don’t say CLAed. Just what did you ask your well qualified repairman to do? .

Click to expand...

It was a full CLA.

I know a retired repairman specialised in Rollei cameras who worked on all my Rollei 6x6s (Rolleiflex 2.8F, Wide, Tele, Rollei 6008, Rollei 35 S), he told me that the optical adjustment of a Rolleiflex is precise to something like two 100th of mm and requires some specific tools like collimator, dedicated surface plate… in order to check the perfect lens alignment, front plate parallelism to film plane and groundglass (if the front plate is not parallel to the film plane, there's a difference of focus between the two lenses).
So no problem with shutter and general mechanical CLA, I dot it for my large format lenses, maybe get a decent optical quality, but if you want to get the best a Xenotar or Planar Rolleiflex can perform, you need the hands of an experienced, qualified and equiped professionnal repairman.

Modern lubricants (unlike lubricants used 40 years ago or more) are rather temperature insensitive. I've taken my Rolleiflex and Leica M from the California desert in the summer to Northern Finland in the winter with no problems. Both had been serviced in the last 10~20 years. So I really don't think that's your problem. As far as how often do they need service, I'd say for an amateur every 30 or 40 years.

1. you need above average mechanical skills
2. download this 478 page service manual https://learncamerarepair.com/downloads/pdf/Rolleiflex-TLR-Repair-Manual.pdf and study the section for your model.
3. download this 257 page Compur shutter repair manual https://learncamerarepair.com/downloads/pdf/Compur-Factory-Shutter-Repair-Manual.pdf
The/your Rolleiflex uses a modified CN-1110-000 shutter. The modifications are a different face plate, cocking and release levers, flash sync. The Synchro compur is a bear to learn shutter repair on. The shutter is size 00 which is 45mm in diameter.
4. Pay close attention to how its assembled, take pictures as you disassemble to aid in reassembly. There are shims under the front plate that look like washers and may be different thicknesses, their position is important. Some shutter parts are thin and easily bent and once bent they will not function correctly and straightening them may be impossible.
5. A good set of precision screwdrivers and tweezers are necessary, A chisel tip hobby knife is helpful for removing the leather covering. Only the front cover need to be removed to service the shutter.

The shutter will need to be fully disassembled except the aperture blades, cleaned with 90% Isopropyl Alcohol or Naphtha (not lighter fluid) mixed with the alcohol, trace oil and grease applied as its reassembled then verified it works correctly before reinstalling in the camera body.

Answering your last question: my experience is that Rollei TLRs often need servicing every 5 to 15 years.

shutterfinger said:

1. you need above average mechanical skills
2. download this 478 page service manual https://learncamerarepair.com/downloads/pdf/Rolleiflex-TLR-Repair-Manual.pdf and study the section for your model.
3. download this 257 page Compur shutter repair manual https://learncamerarepair.com/downloads/pdf/Compur-Factory-Shutter-Repair-Manual.pdf
The/your Rolleiflex uses a modified CN-1110-000 shutter. The modifications are a different face plate, cocking and release levers, flash sync. The Synchro compur is a bear to learn shutter repair on. The shutter is size 00 which is 45mm in diameter.
4. Pay close attention to how its assembled, take pictures as you disassemble to aid in reassembly. There are shims under the front plate that look like washers and may be different thicknesses, their position is important. Some shutter parts are thin and easily bent and once bent they will not function correctly and straightening them may be impossible.
5. A good set of precision screwdrivers and tweezers are necessary, A chisel tip hobby knife is helpful for removing the leather covering. Only the front cover need to be removed to service the shutter.

The shutter will need to be fully disassembled except the aperture blades, cleaned with 90% Isopropyl Alcohol or Naphtha (not lighter fluid) mixed with the alcohol, trace oil and grease applied as its reassembled then verified it works correctly before reinstalling in the camera body.

Click to expand...

I...uh...wow...that is terrifying.

ShutterSpook said:

I...uh...wow...that is terrifying

Click to expand...

Yes, all the parts spread out look like a complicated monster!
Parts make up sub assemblies that preform a specific function, sub assemblies build up to make an operational camera. One only needs to deal with the sub assemblies that are causing the problem unless you are doing a full reconditioning of the camera. In your case the front of the camera is all that needs disassembly to access the shutter then the shutter disassembles in stages and reassembles in reverse of disassembly.
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most difficult this camera/shutter is a 9.9 for a beginner, a 6 or 7 for an experienced tech, a 2 or 3 for a tech that services Rolleiflex cameras daily.

Repairmen are different. Some use the classical oils used decades ago and might be organic oils. Some use modern synthetic oils with the correct specs for the job, and some use graphite powder (that has to be worked in and the excess blown out. Compur shutters can run dry, so some repairmen don't lubricate them at all, which may cause more wear with time. Hobbyists might use a light oil, like sewing machine or lock oil, that might or might not work in the long run.

Even the best repairman can make mistakes, so the camera might have to go back for a warranty fix. I used Rolleiservice in Stockholm here in Sweden. It doesn't exist anymore, and the guy who ran it would be around 100 years old by now, if he is still alive. But he was trained at Franke & Heidecke and knew every single part of the cameras and shutters. During a "CLA" he took all apart, cleaned the parts and rebuilt the camera. Always an excellent job. But I had to return a Rolleiflex once when the shutter stopped working after a roll. Of all the hundreds of parts, it was just a tiny spring that didn't hook on a post correctly. Annoying, but it's one of those things that happen.

A good camera CLA is not for a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, but for a qualified camera repairman. Of course there are good hobbyists, but there are also quacks. A hobbyist can turn into a quack by repairing cameras in unconventional, to say the least, ways. It's not always fun for real repairmen to deal with strange repairs.

Chris Sherlock, the famous Retina repairman got a Zeiss Ikon Contina camera full of ants to repair once.

Think of it this way... a finely engineered Swiss Wristwatch always required more frequent and expensive servicing than an inexpensive Timex. Same is true of cameras. It’s not always a function of “improper service” or “inferior oils”...