Yashica Mat 124 shutter swap

[longknives]

I just picked up a Yashica Mat 124 that upon closer inspection the lens board appears to be out of sorts, sitting cockeyed with all 4 corners at different elevations and requiring a trip to Mark Hama for CLA. I also have a Copal MXV shutter with a 10 blade aperture from a Yashica Mat and was wondering if I could swap out the shutters, if that is possible or would that be a bad idea. My thought process was about better Bokeh, and since the camera is going in for service I was thinking why not, my google fu has turned up nothing so far.

 

[longknives]

Oh yeah, it's obvious someone had been rooting around inside and after contacting the seller he offered a full refund (seller was not the one inside) and we settled on 1/2 price. When I spoke with Mark he just chuckled and said no problem send it in and it would take about a week. At the time we spoke I had not thought about the shutter swap.

 

[TooManyShots]

I think you can safely swap the entire front assembly which is very easy. Just remove the front leather and all the screws would be visible. I won't even bother to work with the actual shutter itself. That's the job for the pros. If the Yashica Mat 124g is in good condition, yeah, send it to Mark Hama. If not, I would probably return it to the seller. Sigh...the risk of buying these vintage TLRs...heheheh... CLA is pretty much mandatory. If you are lucky, maybe you can do it yourself if the reconditioning only involves with cleaning and lubing the winding mechanism and focus mechanism.

 

[longknives]

I wouldn't do that. May require shimming to get the focus right. Not a job for a repair novice. It's not like just dropping in another Chevy 327 engine.

I believe that missing shims might be part of my 124's problem and since I know enough to be dangerous and the camera's overall condition is pretty nice I'll just send it out for service and get back a sweet camera.

 

[TooManyShots]

I wouldn't do that. May require shimming to get the focus right. Not a job for a repair novice. It's not like just dropping in another Chevy 327 engine.

Is not hard. Just use a ground glass on the film plane. Use a loupe or your DSLR Liveview to get a clear focus on the ground glass. Than, you adjust the stack height of the viewing lens. Check your LWF for focus and clarity. Until both LWF and your ground glass are showing sharp focus. I just swapped another taking glass from another Yashica Mat of an older model.