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jon
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 01:33 pm: | 
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I picked up a Hi-Matic 9 at an estate sale. It appears to be in excellent shape. The shutter worked... and then it stopped working. Putting in a battery, I checked the meter and it works fine. The viewfinder is VERY bright.
If I wanted to make a foray into exploring the shutter (and possibly fixing it), are there any resources? I will either fix it myself or sell it as is.
j |
Paul Weidenbener
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 12:42 pm: |
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A friend of mine recently pick up a Hi-Matic 7s for me, also at an estate sale.
Just like you, I played with the thing without film, and found it to be working well. Then I shot a 36 exposure roll, and the pictures were excellent.
Afterwards, as is my habit, I began playing with it without film, to examine it, and before too long the shutter wouldn't work.
According to my internet research, and the markings, it is a Seiko-LA shutter.
When the camera first came to me, it was grimy, and I spent 2 hours with alcohol and cotton swabs cleaning it up. So I figured the inner workings might be grimy also. Therefore I poured alcohol over the lens. I'm not recommending this, but it is what I did. I didn't have much to lose. For a time the shutter began working now and then, but then when the alcohol evaporated the shutter was not working again. I poured more alcohol and the shutter again worked about 20 times out of 100 tries. But the winding seemed to get stiff the more I tried.
Still feeling I have little to lose, I have since taken the camera apart. This was not easy, and I am sure it will be even more difficult to assemble.
In the meantime I have also been reading general guidlines on camera repair, and one suggestion was cleaning parts with 97% alcohol, Vodka, or lighter fluid (the type for pocket lighters I think).
I had been using a 91% mix of alcohol.
I have taken many parts of the camera apart, but not the lens assembly itself. The shutter is within the lens assembly, but I can't figure out how to take it apart. Not certain I would want to.
Therefore I squirted lighter fluid in to it and am now waiting for it to dry.
I have read that the lighter fluid will evaporate completly, and was recomened by one amature repair site for unlocking shutters.
I am happy to say that the shutter is 100% working now! But, the lighter fluid is not yet dried up.
Also the lighter fluid, like the alcohol before, has coated the lenses inside. I hope when it dries there will not be a residue.
I also hope I can put this thing back together, without having misaligned the rangefinder.
Anyway I hope you can use this to your advantage.
Paul. |
Jon Flanders
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 10:41 pm: |
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Its not that hard to take the front lens element out of a Hi-Matic. Unscrew the outside ring, and then unscrew the outer lens element. Look for the slots on the ring and the lens element.
Set the aperture for f16 to keep lighter fluid off the inner lens.
Put a couple of drops of lighter fluid on the shutter blades and then swab it off with a q tip. Fire the shutter repeatedly while the fluid dries. Repeat this until the shutter fires freely when it is dry.
I don't recommend drenching the camera with fluid as Paul described. You need to work on the blades until the dried lube is gone. |
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 10:54 am: |
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Quite often one can read that shutters run dry, that is without any lubrication at all, but this one doesn't, and as you say "the winding seemed to get stiff the more I tried". During repair of two of my old Hi-Matics (7s & 9) I experienced the same and discovered that this was caused by friction in the cocking device, resulting from too excessively washing the shutter with lighter fluid; I was, like so many others, misled to take the word "flushing" all too literally! It seems very likely your case is similar because you have washed away the lube on the cocking shaft of the main spring (the sturdy round one on the right seen from the front) which needs a tiny bit of MoS2, or similar grease. |
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