What did you fix today? (part 2)

David R Williams said:

Our family had one of that very clock at our summer cottage in NW Ontario. Unfortunately, it went with the cottage (along with my summer stereo) when my parents sold it in the late '90's.

Nice to see a reminder of the clock.

Click to expand...

They are beauties, I grew up with it and pretty much spent my whole life seeing it. Even though they were mass produced there's a level of care that went into their making.

Helios 1984 said:

Here's the instructions I used, years ago.

I had to relubricate the helicoid and focus ring because they were so difficult to rotate that it hurt my fingers. The inner helicoid is easy, you remove the back, a few bits, and you can unscrew the unit from the front. Just make sure to note where it comes out or else you spend half an hour trying to find the correct position. Also, if the focus is smooth enough and the infinity focus is fine, I'd leave them alone. They're held together with a retainer ring instead of setscrews, and it's a finicky to re-tighten the ring without messing the focus.

Here's what I'm talking about.
On the picture, I'm pushing the outer helicoid counter-clockwise with a flat bladed screwdriver, as I'm tighting the retainer ring clockwise with a spanner wrench.

Click to expand...

Many thanks.

It's not so hard to focus now, but I think it's just a matter of time before the helicoid becomes completely stuck. It seems to happen to every single CZJ Tessar sooner or later. Your instructions are useful and detailed, and I appreciate that you complemented them with your own experience.

Werra 2 was jammed. In this case problem was in mechanic part of film advance, not shooter.
I have cleaned it and take out plastic peace from viewfinder that where on the lever for gears. Be careful when opening top cover by unscrewing flat screws from the side, you will need a force.
Interesting for Werra 2 is part under top cover that has hols for mirrors for rangefinder that will be introduced in Werra 3.
Kliking now happily to shoot something thru this optics!

I bought this Exa 1a few years ago from a collector but it was missing the rewind lever. About a month ago I bought a broken Exa 500 for £1 at a camera fair, it was fitted with an unnamed 2x converter. I will strip the 500 for parts. I removed its push fit rewind lever and the Ia is now complete and fully functional.





I have now removed the remains of the sicker. The camera and 50mm f2.9 Ludwig Meritar lens are in excellent condition. It is not the lens that came with the camera when I bought it, that was a mint looking Domiplan, however the lens is useless you can't even focus it, the front element has been damaged, it's not scratched at all but is hazy.

It appears it only took me 11 years to get around to fixing this Exa 1a, a quick APUG search shows I bought the camera in 2014

The Meritar must have come in a job lot, I know I never specifically bought it. I do have other Exacta camera a Varex IIb and an Exa II, and a few lenses, extension tubes, bellows etc.

Ian

Bulk-film loader is a recent $5 thrift store find. As found, it was missing the crank, and the Bakelite was chipped. 3D-printed the former, and a combination of JB Weld and paint made for a near-invisible repair of the latter.

The cameras aren't new to me, and I had previously cleaned and lubricated them, but earlier attempts at collimating the optics weren't satisfactory. But that changed with the arrival of a Reveni Labs autocollimator! Agfa Isolette III and Olympus Pen-S were a breeze to adjust. But despite being the simplest camera of the bunch, the Smena-2 had me baffled: While I could collimate the lens easily enough, the factory index markings weren't lining up properly. After awhile (far too long) it dawned on me: Camera was missing a shim!


So I recreated the missing part in FreeCAD, and 3D-printed it. If I had a cutter, I might have preferred using that, but I knew that this was going to be a pretty thick shim. True, I could have simply hand-cut the part, but I'm always looking to improve my CAD skills. I needed to make adjustments to the thickness, and 0.5 mm ended up being just about perfect.

Nice work

4season said:

a combination of JB Weld and paint

Click to expand...

I've used this combination (or black Magic Marker) to repair light seals in camera bodies with excellent results. JB Weld has enough metal in the mix to be opaque out of the tubes, but cosmetic matches is good...

I straightened a crooked lug on one of the legs of my new-old Tripod. Fortunately, it's made of brass and so was easy to bend back into shape with a propane torch and light persuasion.

Helios 1984 said:

I straightened a crooked lug on one of the legs of my new-old Tripod. Fortunately, it's made of brass and so was easy to bend back into shape with a propane torch and a light persuasion.



View attachment 420139View attachment 420140

Click to expand...

Well done!

Good job.



Keeping our own gear in shape is the best away to keep our hobby/business in good shape and moving forward in this throwaway age.

Jury still out on this Hasselblad 500c a friend gave me. I managed to fix the two backs. But the body is stuck cocked. I'm in the cleaning process, will put a bit of lube on it to try and get it going. I'm not going to ruin it by disassembling all the springs etc. I can get it back together.

Took the front element off a 101mm f/4.5 Ektar with a slow running Supermatic at 1 sec. Gently dropped a drop or two of naptha into the geartrain, and all is back to normal.

I had to replace the aperture flex ribbon cable on my Canon 24-105 L. That was fun. The instructions I found on the internet weren't really the best way to do it. Removing the front element group made it way easier to reassemble. It also had a bit of play in the zoom from some loose screws inside so I was able to take care of that too.

@mshchem Share details if you manage to get to to release. I have one partially disassembled in the same state. I haven't had time to deal with it in months.

I tried to increase the pushing strength of the pressure plate on a 6x9 back, I found that is the cause of my back-focusing problem. It pushes very tightly now but I don't know if it will ever be able to hold the film flat enough for full aperture shooting. Just 0.4mm film center bulge can cause a 15cm back-focus at 3 meters.

Don_ih said:

@mshchem Share details if you manage to get to to release. I have one partially disassembled in the same state. I haven't had time to deal with it in months.

Click to expand...

I gave it a bit more contact cleaner and a few drops of a renowned penetrating oil. Set it in a tray, I'm dealing with my darling wife's expectation of some of my delicious chili, and we have a blizzard scheduled here for tonight .
My friend gave me the camera 3 lenses 50, 80, 150. I think this may require an expert. My goal is try to free it up but not break it! First do no harm.

mshchem said:

My goal is try to free it up but not break it! First do no harm

Click to expand...

I know that's particularly challenging. Good luck!