A friend who converted to digital has very kindly passed his old TLR along to me, a meterless Minolta Autocord (not sure exactly which model).
Unfortunately, like an awful lot of Autocords, it has a broken focus lever; and as far as I can tell without disassembling things, it's not just the lever but the ring inside that contacts the focus helical, so I can't fix it by bodging together a replacement for the protruding lever part.
It seems to be in perfect shape otherwise, and I know it's theoretically possible to break in there, fab a new lever and ring, reassemble everything and recalibrate the focus, but realistically I just don't have world enough and time. Barring that, any thoughts? Is there a functional use for this camera, or is it just sort of doomed to be a shelf queen until someone gets motivated enough to do a fairly drastic repair?
-NT
Unfortunately, like an awful lot of Autocords, it has a broken focus lever; and as far as I can tell without disassembling things, it's not just the lever but the ring inside that contacts the focus helical, so I can't fix it by bodging together a replacement for the protruding lever part.
It seems to be in perfect shape otherwise, and I know it's theoretically possible to break in there, fab a new lever and ring, reassemble everything and recalibrate the focus, but realistically I just don't have world enough and time. Barring that, any thoughts? Is there a functional use for this camera, or is it just sort of doomed to be a shelf queen until someone gets motivated enough to do a fairly drastic repair?
-NT
