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Wenbiao Liang
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2005 - 12:01 am: | 
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Hi, Guys,
Anyone knows how to take off the top plate of this Konica Auto-Reflex? I took off the winder, full-half switch, battery-check switch, but I could not figure out how to take off the rewind. The top plate is being held by this rewind right now.
Thanks!
Wenbiao |
Qi Liansheng
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2005 - 03:06 am: |
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Hi,
I think my words helpful.
Hold the inside part of rewinder with a little stick like tool£¬and wind the rewinder just the different direction of rewinding, next you can find yourself.
L.S. Chi |
Wenbiao Liang
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2005 - 01:06 pm: |
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Liansheng,
I tried that, it did not work, maybe I did not use enough force, since I did not want to break it.
This is the original Auto Reflex, the full-half frame version. The rewind is kind of different than the rest of the AR familiy, such as T, or T3.
The rewind shaft is not straight, and it uses some sort of gears to turn the rewind-fork. (I assume it, since I could not open it to see.)
Are you sure you are referring to the original Auto Reflex?
Thanks again!
Wenbiao |
henry
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2005 - 05:38 pm: |
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I have three of these disassembled on my desk at this exact time. And yes, the rewind lever unscrews the normal way...ie...open the back---hold the fork---turn the lever counter clockwise.
If yours doesn't loosen with moderate force STOP! The geartrain beneath the lever is rather delicate and parts are hard to find. Though one of those three I mentioned is a donor for the other two.
Use penetrating oil over night. If that fails try heat. If that fails, ask yourself how badly you want that top cover off.
Henry |
Wenbiao Liang
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2005 - 08:39 pm: |
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Thanks Henry and Liansheng again,
I took it off. I guess I did not apply enough force last night - i did not want to break it. I even took the level off, thinking there might be a retaining ring under there, but no.
The problem with mine is: the shutter fires, but after that, the mirror box does not go back, so I thought I need to clear the mirror box assembly, and therefore need to take the front plate off. So, without her top off, I can not reach the mirror box.
Now I need to figure out how to take the front plate off, which I think should be easy (or easier than putting it back.  )
Thanks again!
Wenbiao |
henry
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 04, 2005 - 07:35 am: |
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An Auto Reflex is very easy to work on. It is modular in its construction so things generally come out as big, independent "chunks". And...this is one camera Tomosy does very good on in his Restoring the Great Collectible Cameras (1945-1970).
The only thing a bit weird (meaning different) in disassembling an Auto Reflex mirrorbox is the bridging members at the top of the camera. You'll need to remove the bracket surrounding the counter and the counter itself on the wind side. On the rewind side there is a bridging bracket too. And you'll need to remove the rewind side screw by the eyepiece.
I have mine apart and can give better directions and photos if you get into a fix.
Henry |
Wenbiao Liang
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 04, 2005 - 10:35 am: |
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Thanks Henry,
I had managed to take it apart last night, you were right, I had to remove lots of "unnecessary" things before I could take the mirror box off, and I think putting it back *should* not be as hard as I thought, but I will see.
I think mines problem was there were too much greese in the mechanism in various linkages in the mirrobbox, so I cleaned them, hopefully, it should fix the problem.
So you have 3 A/R? a friend of mine bought 3 Konica FPs, and we managed to take parts from one donor, and fixed the other two, 66.7% repair rate, makes perfect economic senses!
Thanks again,
Wenbiao |
henry
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 04, 2005 - 01:05 pm: |
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But I didn't say all three were mine! :-)
A local camera collector friend has had this old Auto Reflex with the mirror stuck up for about 10 years. In the course of a conversation one day he mentioned it and I mentioned one I had that I'd gotten completely working except it was missing a battery compartment. Being too cheap to buy a donor body just for a little plastic part my Auto Reflex sat on my shelf a couple years.
But together we decided to buy a donor that had the parts we both needed. So I got one on ebay (with lenses worth the total price I paid) and took all three apart. Then I got ill...
Nothing terribly serious. But enough to not want to turn flat bladed screwdrivers on nearly pristine Auto Reflexes. Today is the first day I've felt good...ok, semi-good...in over two weeks. In a few minutes I'm going out to turn them awhile.
Anybody need any Auto Reflex parts. What I'm removing is the battery compartment and the meter indicator prism...not the pentaprism.
Henry |
Wenbiao Liang
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 05, 2005 - 07:40 pm: |
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Henry,
I am even cheaper, I bought 3 olymps XA for parts, took me 3 months to do "heart transplants" among them, took the IC board and variable resister board (so easy to break) from one, took the lens from another, and took all the control components from the third, and put them together. It took me ~20 assemblies and disassemblies to make it all right. I think I could assembly a XA with my eyes closed.
After 3 months of struggles, I had a working XA, meter was right on, everything works as new, put in a roll of film, tested, excellent results.
Then one day, I handled it to the wife for her to shoot in a school event, 4 hours later, she came back, telling me that she dropped it, and it does not work anymore. :D
Well, I did not have any incentives to repair it again, all the guts are still laying in the parts bin.
Here is the funny part: about 1 week later, I bought a fully functional XA with a flash in a garage sale, for one dollar, one Canadian dollar! :D
Anyway, here is a progress report for the Konica Auto Reflex.
It turns out that the shutter itself has problems, the lower curtains dont go back down, so I suspected that there might be stuff stuck inside, so I took the shutter assembly off, easy to do, just unscrew 4 big screws, and the whole thing came off.
this is the first time, I took a focal plane hutter off, I fixed many leaf shutters before, compur, supermatic, graphlex and etc., but never a focal plane shutter.
Took another 4 screws off, the curtain assembly came off with the control mechanisms, another 4 screws, the curtain asembly came into 2 parts, please notice here, there are 2 tiny "spacer holders", don't loose them. Inside, there 2 sets of curtains, each has 3 blades, the "connections" among the blades are simply amazing.
Anyway, it turns out there were oils on the lower shutter curtains, I cleaned them with alcohol, and they work like new.
A side note, why no one makes/DIY a "between" lens shutter using this copal square shutter from a parts camera? the shutter itself is quite small, and light, the openning is big 24X36, although square, it is much bigger than the openning of most of the leaf shutters. although all mechanisam are on one side, making it unbalanced, but still, it has 1- 1/1000 speed, and all controls are there, well, maybe except aperture blades?
Regards!
Wenbiao |
henry
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 06, 2005 - 07:11 pm: |
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Ok...you are cheaper. And definitely luckier than me when it comes to finding REAL cheap deals.
Tell you what...when I finish taking off the parts and reassembling all three cameras, I'll send you the donor. In my tinkering I got the shutter working. Maybe you can reinstall good parts from yours with the bad shutter. I only removed the battery compartment and meter prism. Neither of these operations requires removing the mirror box. You might could get a fully functioning Auto Reflex!
Henry |
henry
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 06, 2005 - 07:14 pm: |
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Opps, hold that thought. I thought you were Gary Turner that I was talking to by private email.
I got too many conversations going on simultaneously! Old men don't multi-task too well.
Sorry, have to retrack that offer.
Henry |
Wenbiao Liang
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 07, 2005 - 12:21 am: |
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Henry,
Thanks for the offer, although I wish I were Gary Turner, :p
I think my AR should work, if I can put it back, except I lost two tiny e-clips, the two e-clips that clip the arm that connects the winding shaft and the shutter cocking shaft, in the base plate.
They are way too tiny, and I could not find them in Home-Depot today.
If your donor camera still has these e-clips, do you mind giving them to me? I would be more than happy to pay for them and the shipping.
Please email me off line at [email protected].
Thanks a lot!
Wenbiao |
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