Ray Skinner:
Before any work The first shot before I start any work, overall the camera is in a pretty shoddy state, lots of wear, chipped paint and loose/damaged leatherette. Decided to work 'towards' the lens on this one as I am fairly sure that I will not actually
Ray Skinner:
Focusing plate Leatherette worn and needs replacing, completely split where the screen cover plate meets the frame, this was also meant to act as a hinge so the cover plate was just loose and often fell out.
Ray Skinner:
Came to strip the focus plate to find that most of the screws were worn flat and couldnt take a screwdriver. So, had to cut new slots in each screw while in situ. Surprised to find that the frame was made of wood.
Ray Skinner:
Stripped, really worn in places. not sure if by design/manufacture, but the 4 corners of the ground glass screen were cut off, really sharp glass edges so sanded them off
Ray Skinner:
Focus plate: starting to clean off old paint, etc. looks like someone had previously painted this with a flattened stick!!
Ray Skinner:
Focus plate: all clened up now, ready for paint. Going to leave the brasswork as polished rather than painted.
Ray Skinner:
Focus plate: all painted and recovered, still prefer brasswork polished.
Ray Skinner:
Focus plate: more or less a comparison shot of the same view as the second image in this collection
Ray Skinner:
Focus plate: all done. And it still fits into the camera! :)
Ray Skinner:
OK, moving on to the main body, mostly muck n scratches
Ray Skinner:
The baseplate was once covered with leatherette, this had long gone, will look at replacing this.
Ray Skinner:
all parts stripped out, only the casing remains. So far the list is: reglue velvet light seals clean all mech. parts repaint worn casing reglue leathertte repair carry handle
Ray Skinner:
all the parts that i removed from the casing, these all need a clean, more on that later.
Ray Skinner:
The carrying handle was well worn, cracked, etc. so I filed off the brass rivets to remove the old handle, plan to mak a new one from leather.
Ray Skinner:
Casing all cleaned
Ray Skinner:
rear casing, velvet strips removed and cleaned
Ray Skinner:
The lens slide was mostly mucky, a good clean ought to do this.
Ray Skinner:
a bit of tarnish, a bit of rust and it looks like somone had painted over a lot of it! this needs to come off!
Ray Skinner:
Inside of the shutter/iris mechanism. the shutter was sticking all the time. a clean and degrease should fix this. as i have an ultrasonic cleaning bath will try this first.
Ray Skinner:
shutter stripped and cleaned, now fires correctly.
Ray Skinner:
a reassembled shutter assembly, brasswork restored to brass
Ray Skinner:
the lens slide reassembled, the lens housing had also been hand painted with black paint, restored to brasswork, this will naturally tarnish in time.
Ray Skinner:
camera reassembled
Ray Skinner:
viewfinder all clean, also new strap made. The only part i didnt photograph was the baseplate which now has a new leatherette covering.