What did you fix today? (part 2)

hi ned
love that moka espresso maker !
i used to have a vesuvia that i LOVED
but it got too pitted to save ...

yours and mine very low maintenance ...
although pump machines can be a PITA
( and not too portable ! )

This weekend's project was an Olympus 35RD with sticky shutter. There's a good on kyphoto.com for this very repair, and just like Henry Taber, mine had a front lens cell which proved very difficult to remove. In fact, it seems that the factory applied some sort of adhesive to the threads. Fabricated a clamp wrench from a bit of birch ply, wrapped a rubber band around the unit for additional traction and finally it yielded but even so it was much more difficult than it should have been. Made a couple of mistakes which required a a full teardown, and yup, the blasted lens cell was stuck again. Removed the adhesive as best I could and on the final reassembly, just tightened the assembly by hand.

This was my first time working with a leaf shutter, but I encountered no real difficulties there. Cleaned the blades with naptha then burnished them with pencil graphite for the heck of it.

Shutter and aperture rings felt very rough. Cleaned and lubed with a tiny bit of Molykote which helped greatly.

Light traps: Replaced with strips hand-cut from a larger sheet purchased at least 2 decades ago! But it's still pliable and non-sticky/crumbly after all these years.

Really kind of amazed at how they achieved functional auto exposure using nothing more than a single resistor, CdS photo-resistor and galvanometer! All else is accomplished via a perforated metal mask which varies the amount of light striking the photo resistor. That plus a sort of stepped guillotine blade whose ultimate height is determined by the position of the galvanometer needle. If I decided to, this would probably be the easiest camera to convert to 1.5V as that single fixed resistor couldn't be easier to reach.

In the end, the CLA took a lot more time than I expected, but now it's ready to use, auto-exposure and all.

After a fall on a trip to Colorado the Nikon N-75 was not working. I checked the batteries, one was good and one was bad. I replaced the bad battery and the camera still would not work. After a few weeks I took it to Samys. The repairman said that one battery was good, the new one, and one was bad. He replaced the bad battery and the camera was back to working. Now the N-75 is the latest new old camera and I do not have an excuse or reason to buy a second F-100. <<sigh>>

a small engine

a handful of 4x5 contact prints, fixed, washed and now, probably dry ..

A Ricoh 500. A slow shutter and slightly stiff shutter release called for a good general cleaning.

Tried to fix an FM2n that would try to fire the shutter, but fail at opening the curtain, then, if you helped it along, fail at completely closing the other curtain. Decided to check the meter out. Twitchy. Noticed that the coupling ring wouldn't return to rest. Also noticed that the front apron was cracked at the bottom and the screws were rusted badly enough that you couldn't loosen them. Instead, they'd strip. At that point, took the top off. A bit of a mess. Camera became a pile of parts sorted into my camera parts box within 15 minutes.

-J

Last night I succeeded in mending an ancient Weimarlux CdS light meter, regretfully given up for dead. It turned out there was an invisible break in the metallic connection between the battery compartment and the internal circuit, and a thin strip of brass foil and the careful application of a soldering iron has now restored the meter to useful service. Comparison with a modern meter this morning shows that the Weimarlux is still accurate.

Finally, after years of having it in a box reproaching me, I fixed my pretty thrashed Plaubel Makina III. I will never sell this camera, not because I love it but because nobody would buy it. It is the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree of cameras: ugly, temperamental, almost satirically unergonomic, yet somehow gets the job done. The primary problem was the rangefinder-- it had stumped my camera repair guy but then I managed to figure out the problem (all the screws holding the thing onto the cam had stripped). After that, it only took me 2 years to figure out the solution! And then 3 trips to the one hardware store that somehow had some tiny e-rings in stock. Now the rangefinder is usable, albeit horribly misaligned vertically.

And then I patched the last holes (so far) in the bellows with 3M black polyester tape. If you can't sell a camera, this stuff is great for bellows: it sticks to where you press it hard and doesn't have any thickness to stop a bellows from folding and is opaque. Of course, the bellows looks like Elmer Fudd after a fight with Bugs Bunny, but it works. Note too that this tape is expensive, just like this hopeless Plaubel Makina was. All Plaubel Makinas are optimistically valued, either as objects for sale or as things to be repaired.

So now I have an ugly, ancient, cranky (the self timer decides when it will self time all by itself) 6x9 press camera, most of the headaches of a Baby Graflex in a still- smaller package. In a fit of perversity, I stuck a roll of Verichrome from 1953 in it, and the 73mm Ww Orthar that I bought "for when I get this thing working" so long ago I don't know how many kids I had, and went out and shot some things. Came back, souped it (or brewed it?) in Caffenol C, got something besides backing paper stencils on a couple frames. Damn, it's in focus. Damn, that was fun. Now I see that this has a certain steampunk je nais cest quois. Plaubel Makina III, I can't quit you. Anybody know any bellows makers?

I have an 11"x14" print washer that was missing one of the Plexiglas dividers. So I removed a divider and had another one made a plastics store. Now the print washer has all its parts back.

A while back I was given a Arkay CD-40 film drying cabinet. Cool right, well you're right it is cool, but free is rarely free. The catch was that the cabinet had been dropped during a move, badly denting the door and breaking one pane glass.

My brother works for a sheet metal shop that specializes in stainless steel fabrication so I had them make a new door. The door is basically a clone of the old door except in stainless. Everything fit perfectly. I addition to the door and glass I also replaced all the "weather stripping" for the glass and door perimeter and the air filter. So long story short, the Arkay lives!!!

Roger

That's cool! My film drying cabinet is either my garage or an old cabinet therein.

As an addendum, I fixed the self-timer issue on the Makina III. It's now officially the British sports car of cameras- shoot it one week, fix it the next. If Plaubel could have found a way to make it leak oil, the analogy would be complete.

A Beaulieu MR 8 for a client on Friday. That particular camera has two factory faults. One is that the release button cannot be locked for self filming and the other is a too long crankshaft on the mirror slides so that the lower of the two slides cuts into the aperture, about 0,4 mm. The crankshaft is hardened, I couldn’t adjust it. Also, the additional shutter slide can’t be set freely over 360 degrees, it touches the housing over an angle.

There was more to it like the play in three joints between outside lever and mirror slides, a worn-out thread in the thin housing wall that should hold the screw of the lightmeter switch, and so on. In 2014 one would have had to pay 2200 Euro for the crap! Marcel Beaulieu was a mugger.

Europan said:

Marcel Beaulieu was a mugger.

Click to expand...

I have a 4008 ZM IV I like to play with and yep, its always a question as to what will work and what wont. Sometimes I have a light meter, otherwise I shoot it manually. The power zoom went away and never came back. Its a joy to play with but in a quirky odd way, its not an easy tool to use. And that grip...

I sometimes think I need to send it out to be fixed but then again figure I'd be better off buying a Nikon.

I was expecting a rectangular safe light, but I received a drop down safe light. The plastic parts holding the reflector to the light socket was loose because some felt washers were never assembled with them. I used Gorilla glue to fill in the space and stop the wobbling. I still have to clean off the excess glue and remove the reflector from the clamp lamp. This safe light will work well.

attempted to fix the moldy lenses on this Kodak Vest Pocket Series III that came in the mail today.

Got 4 of 6 surfaces. the rear element comes out, but it appears to actually have 2 pieces of glass in it, with no obvious way to separate them, like they're pressed into the metal housing, so there is still a bit of mold on the perimeter inside, but none in the middle. The front element is cleanable from the front and the rear using the bulb setting to keep the shutter open.

Finished a couple of TLR's today. New focusing screens were needed for both a Mamiya C3 and a Rolleicord 1a T3. The Rollei is looking pretty nice, just needed a clean up and new screen when I got it. The C3 was beat, literally beat. Looked like it had been used as a hammer, or beaten on by one. The left side of the body was smashed in and the focusing rack was jammed in place. The right side had been hit too, but not as bad as the left. I opened it up, cleaned and lubed, and did some work on the side covers. The final insult to the poor thing was me dropping the original focusing screen.. Its all back together now and looking... rough. The side covers wont ever be really right and the covering on both sides was damaged. Now its bare metal on the sides and I'm trying to decide if I should just leave it as is, or maybe paint it. I cant get the original rubber covering and don't really want to dump much money in this one, so I'm thinking I might go for a rat rod vibe... with a hippy strap!

Oh that poor thing! Get it working and please show me some pictures, I like used gear ;-)
I tried to fix my Polaroid Land 103 up and put a modern battery in it but found out that the original was still in the camera and it had leaked pretty badly. The whole battery compartment was full of grime and white powdery dirt. The shutter would only fire at one speed. I opened the front and saw that the electronics were shot. Green and rotted away. Must have been stored in a humid place, the poor thing. So I decided to throw out the electronics and I have a Zeiss Ikon Ercona with Shutter and Novar Anastigmat 110mm 4.5 coming. I'll take that and make it new!

I fixed a Canon Elph 370z. Picked it up at an antique store for a few bucks. The zoom catches about halfway, so I took off its casing. Got it to stop hanging and now it works great!

Today I cleaned and relubed an Alu Biotar 58mm f2 and an Alu Tessar T 50mm 2.8.

Sirius Glass said:

I was expecting a rectangular safe light, but I received a drop down safe light. The plastic parts holding the reflector to the light socket was loose because some felt washers were never assembled with them. I used Gorilla glue to fill in the space and stop the wobbling. I still have to clean off the excess glue and remove the reflector from the clamp lamp. This safe light will work well.

Click to expand...

Completed. It is very dim with the 6.5 watt light bulb but bright enough for my needs. Now I need to make sure that it does not fog the paper.

Another Plaubel Makina update: fixed the self-timer issue. Expect these notes on a fairly regular basis.

Another day, another Plaubel note...

This time it's a totallty thrashed Makina I, which I bought just for the novelty of getting a cheap Makina. Pulled off the fungus ridden, non operative lens and shutter, replaced it with a Kodak 101mm Ektar I had lying around. Shimmed up the lens with giant washers and gaffers tape, checked focus on an old Kodak plate camera GG, and it works! That moldy old bellows is still light tight, the crumbling rollholder works for a while. I guess I now have the world's only Plaudak Makintar. Pictures to follow.

Bought-as-faulty Hasselblad CZ Planar 80/2.8, aperture lever had somehow escaped the notch in the aperture ring. Is this something that could happen with normal usage?
Shutter runs OK tho and glass is OK.

My Pentax 6x7's spool release flip lever on the bottom of the camera became loose and wouldn't stay in place. Recently it fell of and I found it in the house. I noticed that the other one had a steel washer and, after a closer look, realized it was half round attached to the rest of the lever, but the other one had fallen off and disappeared. So I went to the local hardware store and found an appropriately sized mylar washer and now it works again!