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Post by nikonbob on Jul 12, 2010 19:49:40 GMT -5
An old user Contax III that came with the Ross lens has a shutter that is not working. You can wind it till the cows come home and it will not tension. I took it apart expecting to see one or both shutter ribbons broken. Turns out both are intact but I can move both shutters up and down by moving the gear gear train beside them. I am assuming that there is no tension on the shutters. So being a total novice where should I be looking for the source of the trouble? Something let go in the drums on the shutter? Anyhow I am open to suggestions before I bow to common sense and send it to a qualified repair person who knows what they are doing.
Bob
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 12, 2010 21:27:02 GMT -5
Have you tried gently coaxing it with a sledgehammer?
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 12, 2010 22:44:29 GMT -5
Yea, tried that but the sledge broke! Tough old birds those Contax cameras are. Unlike those wimpy Ross lenses that succumb to a mere propane torch.
Bob
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Post by olroy2044 on Jul 12, 2010 22:54:21 GMT -5
Plasma cutter? ;D Roy
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 13, 2010 6:26:07 GMT -5
Too high tech and subtle but close.
Bob
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 13, 2010 11:28:38 GMT -5
Hi Bob, As the sledge hammer failed you might like to try some more gentle persuasion. My first thoughts, if you're certain that the tapes and threads of the shutter are OK, are that the tension spring in the drum carrying the lower shutter curtain has failed. Either that or the tension setting has been disturbed. One other possiblity that comes to mind is that the latch between the top and bottom curtains is sticky or jammed open. The best book I know of on pre-war Contax repair is the one by Peter Tooke. I don't think it's still in print, but you may find a secondhand copy if you search the usual on-line booksellers. I've used this book to strip and repair several Kievs which are as near as dammit the same as the pre-war Contax. My copy of Peter Tooke's book is packed away at the moment but if memory serves me right he deals with replacing a broken curtain tension spring. At the moment we're waiting for builders to come in to repair/replace some of the windows, including the ones in the room where my books are stored, but if you don't have any joy in the next three weeks or so send me an email and I'll try to dig the book out and see what it says. In the meantime, have a look at these two sites. www.zorkikat.com/www3.telus.net/public/rpnchbck/cleaning%20and%20repairs.htmlThe second one, Russ Pinchbeck's Kiev site is very good. Russ and I have been in email contact in the past about Kiev/Contax repair and I found him to be a very helpful person. You have to remove the shutter crate from the camera chassis to get at the curtain tension spring (see Russ' site) and please note the use of a piece of sticky tape to prevent to spindle for the top curtain from falling out. See the picture on the first site. It isn't a complete disaster if it does, but it's bl**dy annoying and can be a fiddly job to get back. If trying to retension doesn't work don't give up. I'm not absolutely certain but I think the spring from a Kiev will fit, and you can pick up jammed/broken Kievs quite cheaply from time to time. Contaxes and Kievs have got a reputation for being very difficult to repair, a reputation which I sometimes suspect is fostered by the few specialist repairers who deal with them - and charge very highly for doing so. I believe most do an excellent job, but repair charges are very high. I've found that pre-war Contaxes and their Kiev clones are nowhere near as difficult to repair as most people think, provided you go about things in a logical way instead of trying first one thing then another till you get the camera in pieces and can't put it together again! One important thing I've found out the hard way. If you take apart the gearing under the top plate be certain you make a note of the shutter speed setting before you remove the knob, and MARK the engagement points of all the gears. If you don't you can play for many happy hours of trial and error getting the sychronisation right again so that the curtain tensions and the shutter release interlock cocks both at the same time. So far I haven't been inside a post-war west-German Contax. I know they are different inside from the pre-war models but I don't know the details. Nor have I been inside the troublesome original Contax I. I haven't been able to pick up a broken/jammed example of either of them at the right sort of price. Most sellers seem to clean them cosmetically and expect top price for a "collectable display" camera. These older all-metal cameras are much more interesting - and usually easier - to tinker with than most more modern auto-exposure auto-focus plastic compacts. Good luck. PeterW
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2010 16:04:28 GMT -5
I've replaced the curtains in Leica-type FEDs and Zorkis but never had the nerve to tackle a Contax shutter.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 13, 2010 16:58:59 GMT -5
Peter
The broken tension spring was my first thought. I have the Kiev Survival site bookmarked and it is a good one. Turns out the Contax is just enough different to puzzle me at times. I pulled the shutter crate out and cleaned the gears with Varsol and some cheap artists brushes, then blew it out with compressed air. Lucky day, everything started working again. So off we go to get a precision oiler from the electronics store. A few drops later all still seems well. Same treatment to the self timer and it is running smoothly. I tried the shutter on bulb and it works so if I can get it all back together I'm thinking it will work. I got a few pieces that fell out that still have me wondering where they came from. It has been an experience so far. Good luck with your house renovations. Thanks for the hints.
Wayne
It is not nerve just lack of common sense and any kind of skill on my part. I say I am retired and my wife prefers to use the term retarded pointing to an unusable dining room table covered in parts from an exploded camera. Got to love her for putting up with it.
Bob
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 15, 2010 16:44:01 GMT -5
I never realised dining room tables had any use other than for mending things on.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 19, 2010 11:26:19 GMT -5
Nothing like being the victim of some cosmic joke. The shutter ran fine at different speeds with the shutter crate removed from the camera. After the struggle to put everything back together the shutter gave out with one ribbon breaking. Now to find some suitable replacement material. Don't you just love when the operation was a success but the patient died anyway.
Bob
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 19, 2010 11:34:52 GMT -5
Oh, well, it's back to the drawing board dining table.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 19, 2010 15:13:33 GMT -5
Dave
No, I think I will leave it to someone with the appropriate skills or just keep it for a parts camera.
Bob
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 19, 2010 15:23:12 GMT -5
Time to send for Captain America then - or, perhaps, PeterW. ;D
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 19, 2010 20:32:49 GMT -5
Bob:
That's tough luck - You went down in spades, doubled and vulnerable.
My advice, for what little it's worth, is to put the camera away for a while. The trouble with keeping it for a parts camera is that the parts you are likely to need are the ribbons, and they're already broken!
I know how you feel at the moment. I once replaced the shutter tapes on a Kiev using ribbon from a local fabric store. I was so pleased to find a ribbon the right size I forgot to check what it was made from.
Turns out it was nylon. If I'd used what little sense God gave me I'd have checked first and realised that nylon stretches. I play guitar, or used to before I got arthritis in my left hand, and though I played a Stratocaster steel strung electric, anyone who knows anything about guitars will tell you that on a nylon strung acoustic guitar new strings just keep stretching and stretching.
And that's what happened to my nylon curtain ribbons. After operating the shutter about 50 times they'd stretched to the point where the shutter didn't want to know any more. I should have used silk ribbon.
I put the camera on the shelf and more or less wrote it off as a repair. Then about three months later a friend in the Photographic Collector's Club of Great Britain told me he had some genuine Russian Arsenal ribbon left over. He bought more than he needed from Oleg Khalyavin in Russia and was kind enough to let me have a foot of it at the same price he paid.
To cut a long story short I'd got over my fit of the blues about the shutter and did the job again following instructions from Rick Olesen and from 'Zorkikat'.
This time success! The shutter worked and kept on working.
So don't give up. Nil desperandum or nil carburundum or whatever. Put the Contax away for a while and come back to it fresh and raring to go again.
But don't use nylon ribbon!!!
PeterW
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2010 21:32:08 GMT -5
Peter mentioned Oleg Khalyavin. Here's his link. www.okvintagecamera.com/I've had Oleg repair several cameras for me. He does wonderful work. But I haven't had him do anything since the Russians started jacking up postal rates a couple of years back. Oleg is good people. Wayne
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