What did you fix today?

[Toffle]

Saunders/LPL 6700... new bulb... no big deal... but it's a new enlarger for me, so I'm quite excited. The filter adjustment knobs are quite stiff, though... I'll need to fix that.

[McFortner]

The shutter curtain on my Minolta X-370 is working again. I don't know how since I haven't touched it for 2 months. It would not retract all the way, so I finally got a X-9 to replace it and when my son asked why I took the X-370 out to show him the problem. The darn thing worked fine when I went to show him. Go figure.

Michael

[Michael Finder]

I adapted a B&J 8x10 back to fit onto my Vageeswari wood field camera - first I stripped off all the battlesip grey paint. It is now raw timber waiting to be finished.

[darinwc]

re-sealed a junker canon A1.. replaced the rewind knob with a chrome one from an ae1. Actually have a nice working camera now!~

[Lightproof]

I cleaned the old slide projector of my grandpa. It is a german no-name product, but on the inside I found "Rollei" on the circuit board. =)

Tomorrow I will re-lubricate the mechanics and overpaint the terrible orange of the case.

[Laurent]

Yashica mat 124 G. I bought it for €40, with a sticky shutter. For the first time I disassembled the camera, dipped the shutter in some "spirit" (not sure this is the exact term, it's almost lighter fluid) and had the surprise to hear the delayed release starting moving at some point...

I'll have a new "beater" camera in a few days (not sure I need it, but it was too cheap to pass on ;-) )

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning;

My most recent repair was a Vivitar 135mm f/2.8 Telephoto in Pentax/M42 mount. The front elements and their holder moved around about a millimeter in all directions.

Taking it apart to get to the offending pieces took a while. There is a discreet threaded ring screwed into the front of the cylindrical focusing tube. Finally getting that piece out quickly allowed access to the three small set screws that became visible and accessible when the focusing tube was turned to bring the lens elements mount out to the point of closest focus. Retightening those three set screws restored normal functionality.

[Monophoto]

When we arrived here in San Jose on Thursday night, I found that the elevator crank on my Slik U212 tripod had broken. The end of the handle had broken off, and the entire handle had come out of the tripod head.

Couldn't do anything about the broken end, but I borrowed a screwdriver from our son and was able to reinstall the crank in the head so that it still works.

[hoffy]

Finally, I can add something!

I fixed 2 lenses tonight. A Cosina 100mm F3.5 and a Minolta AF 28mm F2.8.

The rear element on the Cosina was badly fogged, from a bad cleaning job in the past (you could see streaks!). The Minolta had sticky iris blades.

The Cosina was the easiest to do, apart from getting the Iris back together.

THe minolta, well, I made the mistake of taking it off the helicoil. Do you think I could get it back together again? I forgot how hard it is to get a multi start thread going. And 3 out of the 4 attempts I made, I managed to get the wrong start.

But, I got there. Both lenses are working much better then when I started.

[darinwc]

One Canon FD 50mm f1.4 SSC with a sticky shutter. First I tricked the mount ring half closed. Then I removed the 3 screws holding the mount assembly. After that assembly was removed, I used the chance to clean it out, it was very grimy. After that I could get my fingers around the rear element end unscrew it. Dabbed some Ronsonol on the blades, actuated them a few times, wiped them off. Repeated a few times until oil removed. Then put everything back together. Note to check back in a few weeks, as oil tends to travel into the blades from other areas.

Did the same with a vivitar 28mm f2 (kiron make?), Except to get to the blades, I went through the front. The entire front half unscrewed with enough force around it.