Successful SRT-101 mirror cloth repair

[sevesteen]

Got a roll of film back from one of my SRT-101's.  Every shot had a horizontal dark bar across the bottom of the picture.  When i looked closer at the camera, it's something I should have caught before I ran film through it--a piece of cloth dangling from the top of the camera.  I've got no shortage of SRT's...so I looked at another to see how it should go.  That actually delayed the repair by a bit, because while I could get the cloth under the tabs where it should go, I couldn't see how to get it tucked under the bar going across the mirror.  Fiddling with the mirror lockup showed that the bar moves away from the mirror at some parts of the cycle.  If the cloth is tucked into its tabs, it will land where it needs to go and be trapped by that bar as it should when the mirror cycles. 

[philbirch]

Interesting. I take it that the black cloth is a light seal.

[sevesteen]

My guess is that something different is required because the SRT mirror isn't just a simple pivot, it moves almost straight up about 5mm before pivoting. If I understand what is going on (hard to see behind the mirror during travel) the cloth bit slides along the back of the mirror while it goes up, then gets trapped in place when the mirror is in the up position.