What a crummy day! Sinar shutter and Plaubel woes

[medform-norm]

I know really there's nothing to complain about in the face of the recent tragic accident of KS's family members, but still it's been a crummy day. Grmph.

1. Sinar Copal shutter from e*** came today. It works, ehm, it worked for a while. Partner went to clean it, opened it up in all innocence and confident of his otherwise flawless mechanical skills and now finds himself battling with a shutter than won't be mended. The shutter is a nightmare! This will take hours if not days before he will have figured out what's the matter with it. He's even mentioned the option of calling Sinar and asking for help. If you'd know him, you'd know how desperate he is. Let's all wish him luck and perserverance - and the good sense to know when to stop.

2. Plaubel Peco Junior 9x12 camera plus extra international back came today. Both were cheap. Happy us, you'd say. Yes, for another five minutes. While halfway through assembling the camera and figuring out how the international back worked, one of the cats came to help us, jumped on the table, slipped on a piece of cardboard and sent the front standard flying to the ground. Of course it fell down the wrong way, on the lever that operates the swing. Lever broken off! Darn. Have replaced it now with identical level from Pecoflex. Old lever can be fixed, hopefully. Will have to find someone who can make some threading on the left over stump of lever. Not an easy thing to find, down here, companies that still do these odd jobs for small time suckers as we are.

3. International back doesn't match the camera. Bummer. Contacted seller and he's cool about it. Very nice guy, nothing wrong with that, we'll get full refund and shipping and the whole shebang. But it has left us with a camera without international back (only an older sheet film back). And we want really to keep the Plaubel as it mixes and matches the Pecoflex we already use. Hmm, this means more work. Will now have to graft a Linhof back on the older sheet film frame or make a new frame to hold the Linhof back. Won't be able to shoot this weekend with new purchase. Feel like Calvin after being sent to his room by his parents. Time to slump somewhere in a corner....

...on moments like these, I wish I never set eyes on a large format camera in my life!

 

[eumenius]

Oh, about the same story here, an Omegaview 45D with broken in shipment plastic teeth in front standart focusing rack, thanks to the post and bad packing. DARN!! Not a pleasant defect, not a repairable one at home... a guy who sold it promised me to send a spare, though. That would settle the problem. And why can't you make your own threading on that stump of lever - if the thread is metric, it's easy to find a threading plate in some kind of store, they're cheap and fun to use The mechanic company will just hide you for such a small job, I think.
And Sinar shutter is indeed a nightmare Do you mean one inside the camera, past the lens? I repaired one once, thanks to God they're extremely rare in Russia

Cheers, and better luck - Zhenya

 

[medform-norm]

Oh, about the same story here, an Omegaview 45D with broken in shipment plastic teeth in front standart focusing rack, thanks to the post and bad packing. DARN!! Not a pleasant defect, not a repairable one at home... a guy who sold it promised me to send a spare, though. That would settle the problem. And why can't you make your own threading on that stump of lever - if the thread is metric, it's easy to find a threading plate in some kind of store, they're cheap and fun to use The mechanic company will just hide you for such a small job, I think.
And Sinar shutter is indeed a nightmare Do you mean one inside the camera, past the lens? I repaired one once, thanks to God they're extremely rare in Russia

Cheers, and better luck - Zhenya

Thanks Zhenya for your consoling words.

As we speak the Sinar shutter problem has been tackled and dealt with. It was a nightmare, but now it's over. It was an older model behind-the-lens-shutter for a Norma probably. Everything nows runs as smooth again as babies poo in a fresh diaper.

We'll think about the threading plate option. Perhaps it's not too difficult job after all. What do you think, should we do a test run on the tail of the cat that caused this havock or not? Hmm, better not, since in the end it's us probably who are too blame for not unpacking in a tidy enough manner, and not the kitty for jumping on unstable cardboard material.

Cheers, Norm

 

[eumenius]

Thanks Zhenya for your consoling words.

As we speak the Sinar shutter problem has been tackled and dealt with. It was a nightmare, but now it's over. It was an older model behind-the-lens-shutter for a Norma probably. Everything nows runs as smooth again as babies poo in a fresh diaper.

We'll think about the threading plate option. Perhaps it's not too difficult job after all. What do you think, should we do a test run on the tail of the cat that caused this havock or not? Hmm, better not, since in the end it's us probably who are too blame for not unpacking in a tidy enough manner, and not the kitty for jumping on unstable cardboard material.

Cheers, Norm

He-he, Norm, that's not the worst day if you 've managed to fix your Sinar - I wonder why these guys made it so complicated? And the baby poo should be a good analogy to this shutter, yes. The whole concept of DB mount always looked strange to me, or I worked with FKD camers for too long

A threading plate is a nice tool to have, as well as a set of tapers for common threads like M3 or M4? I use mine quite often The main devise of threading work is lubrication - and care And about kitty's tail - you try and see which thread on yourself would kitty cut in an instant once you appear with threading plate near its tail

Cheers, Zhenya