Friday, February 12, 2010

Design Decisions

20100212 typecast pt1
Agfa Jsolette/Isolette
20100212 typecast pt2
Tiny screws from an Agfa Isolette



Typed on an Olympia SM-9
Olympia SM-9

UPDATE: Obviously, patience won the day. After letting it soak for a while in alcohol and working the lens a bit more, the little bugger has come free. I'm facing an evening with cotton swabs and toothpicks to get all the nasty stuff out of the crevices, but I'm over the moon that a project actually worked with little more than a couple of cuts.

5 comments:

Alex said...

Great post. I love this camera. I have been looking for one like this for some time but never found one working. I hope you get it all nice again and that your flesh wound is worth it.

Joe V said...

Nice post.

Regarding the hardened grease, I'm guessing a tiny bit of naphtha (zippo lighter fluid) might do the trick; or a similar kind of penetrating oil, perhaps even WD40, with the caveat not to use too much, else you'll end up having to clean the optics, too.

I'm guessing you've already checked over on Rangefinder Forum for advice; they have a camera repair subforum that might be worth investigating.

Good luck, hope to see some nice, square-format images soon.

~Joe

mpclemens said...

Naptha was my first stop, Joe. Supposedly, green goo dissolves in alcohol, so the optics are sitting in a 91% isopropyl alcohol bath at the moment. I'm going to try a few more tricks to loosen the lens before I go to the next desperate measure.

The green goo also softens up when it is heated, so advice has been to pop the whole lens assembly into the toaster oven (!) and then remove the lens after it is heated (using appropriate hand protection, of course.) I'm going to try mechanical means before that, if only due to my fear of leaving an alcohol-soaked assembly so close to a heat source.

Julia Eff said...

Oh wow. Your poor fingers! But hot damn, those screws. THE SCREWS! They must have been assembled by children weilding nanobots, indeed.

Pam said...

Wonderful camera and interesting post. Too bad about the flesh wound. Live and learn I guess.
Pam