Hi,
I've been reading this Exakta thread with a lot of interest as I too like these cameras, so I feel another ramble coming on.
Also, a collecting friend, Thomas, who lives about a mile from me is a great Exakta enthusiast, as well as being keen on other Dresden-built cameras. He's chairman of the Exakta Circle, and has around 40 Exaktas plus an enviable array of accessories.
When we get together for a natter, as we quite often do, before long it gets around to Dresden cameras in general and Ihagee in particular, and usually lasts till the small hours. BTW, he's also a Canon enthusiast - an appreciation of quality attracts quality
- and an indentured toolroom engineer and machinist, so we have plenty in common to natter about.
He was born in Berlin, though he has lived in England for some 40 odd years, so he has the advantage of being able to correspond with German Exakta enthusiasts, and talk with them when he goes there to visit his 84 year old father. Some of the German Exaktaphiles have been able to salvage a lot of historical documents such as production and repair schedules from the old Ihagee factory vaults. The Ihagee factory was damaged, but not totally destroyed like the Zeiss-Ikon ex-ICA factory was in the 1945 Dresden fire bombing.
I have two Exaktas, a 1936/7 Kine not, unfortunately, one of the rare early 1936 models with the round magnifier in the hood, mine's late 1936-early 1937 with a rectangular magnifier; and a Varex IIa which Valerie bought new at the start of the 1970s.
Both still work very well, though the shutter on the IIa is a little sluggish. It probably needs a CLA. The shutter on the Kine still zips across very smartly. Neither of them show any signs of curtain material deterioration.
The remarks about smoothness of operation interested me, and I've just compared the operation of my Varex IIa and my Kine. Smooth though the IIa undoubtedly is, the Kine is even smoother.
I was told a story that may help to explain the exceptional smoothness of the Kine, as smooth as any pre-war Leica I've handled. Before the war all the parts were taken from the machine lines and put into huge tumblers to take off the rough edges left by the machine tools. Also the cameras were built using selective assembly to allow for machining tolerances. The person building the camera had trays of parts in front of him and tried each part for fit before putting it in. If it didn't feel quite 'right', he tried another part till he found one that did.
After the war, with the Russian inspired (if not exactly controlled) emphasis on increasing rates of production the tumbling stage was omitted and the parts left just as they came from the machine tools. The cameras were also built on line with several people doing specific assembly jobs on each camera. Every camera was still examined by an experienced inspector at the end of the line, and if he didn't like the feel of the way it worked the camera was put aside to go to a rectification bay or, if the feel wasn't perfect but 'near enough' it was set aside for the home market and not export.
When I examined the two cameras I've got I could feel, and see, the difference in the finish of individual parts. For example if I ran my finger round the outside of the large setting knob that winds up the slow speeds it felt rough compared with the fine knurling on the same knob on the Kine. Inside on the IIa you can see the tool marks on the film sprocket shaft. Not so on the Kine. I haven't had the top off the IIa, though I might have to soon to give it a CLA, but I imagine the gearing was similarly left in an 'as machined' condition.
To borrow a phrase from the auto world, the Kine was 'blueprinted' but the IIa was just assembled, and probably needed 'running in' to get everything operating as smoothly as it should. Memory dims after more than 30 years, but I have the feeling that as I remember it the IIa is smoother now that it's had a few hundred films though it than it was when new.
Walker, I think it was, mentioned Miles Upton's book. I read this in serial form when he first wrote it and put it up on his website, and I agree it's very good. As I remember, he advocated a little burnishing and smoothing of a few parts to remove machining marks and get a smoother feel to the way the camera works - doing the job that the tumbling machines did before the war in fact.
My friend Thomas obtained the Ihagee factory repair and service manuals for the Varex IIb and the VX1000 from Germany, and translated the Varex one into English for me. He has no objection to my printing it out for any other collector.
I was going to put it on my business Wallage Reprints website, but I haven't yet got around to it. The pages are scanned in and sitting on my 'printing' computer in Quark, so I only have to make a few mouse clicks and my big 'business' laser printer will run a copy off (using both sides of the paper) in about three minutes.
If anyone on the board wants a copy they can have one for the cost of printing and the postage. I sent a copy of the Exa manual to Rachel, and possibly one or two others may have had copies.
If you want a copy of either, or both, drop me a PM and I'll let you know the cost. For anyone outside this board I charge an economic business price - in other words what the traffic will allow!
.
The manual's very thorough, covering dismantling, replacing curtains, mirros and what have you, and setting them up, but it was written for technicians from Ihagee dealers who attended courses at the factory, so it isn't for complete novices and it assumes a certain familiarity with working on cameras though in this respect it's better IMHO than the Praktica service manuals.
In places it also assumes you have access to things like a surface plate and dial gauge and, for setting the lens and mirror, a collimator, and a speed tester for the speeds, but that's for speed and accuracy. You can along without them by trial and error though it takes longer. The illustrations are somewhat sparse, and are mainly hand-drawn sketches.
I also have copies of the VX1000 service manual (very similar to the Varex) and one covering pretty well all the Exas, but they're both in German. If anyone can work from a manual in German they're welcome to copies on the same basis.
With regard to the RTL, this was still an Ihagee-built Exakta but with the approaching amalgamation of Ihagee into Pentacon a lot of Praktica technology went into it, particularly in the metal shutter, to avoid duplication of design effort and time.
The Praktica story's a fascinating one, and so is the comparison between assembly methods at Zeiss Ikon (West) and Gebruder Wirgin who made Edixas, but they're other stories; maybe another ramble some time.
.
Just back from being called for a drink to see in the New Year. So to our friends on the European mainland and in Oz and NZ who beat us to it, and friends in the US for whom it isn't quite New Year yet:
HAPPY 2007!!!!
PeterW
- and an indentured toolroom engineer and machinist, so we have plenty in common to natter about. 
.