Scott does Bolsey rehab (WAS: Oops...)

[Brazile]

This is fascinating. Thanks for taking us along.

[scott]

This is fascinating. Thanks for taking us along.

Lol, thanks Robert. I'm having fun with it - glad it's somewhat interesting.

Question for y'all: do you sonicate shutters? I'm looking at Mike Eckman's repair notes, and he's a dip-and-dunk kinda guy. I have never flushed a shutter. I do have a small sonicator for when I needed to pull escapements. He literally drops them in solvent, swishes them around, then shakes them out several times. I'm tempted with this one. And since I have the low output sonicator, seems like a decent application. Have a large can of camp fuel in the garage, hmm...

Thoughts?

[EDIT]
Have read a bunch of threads. Have two separate places who show the flushing process with naptha. I'm thinking the shutter will go into a Cheese Whiz jar of naphtha, and the closed jar into the sonicator. Run a few cycles, drain, repeat. See where that gets me. Here's where I'm starting:

[Brazile]

I have been tempted a few times but haven't tried it yet. Will be interested to see your experience if you go through with it.

[Julio1fer]

Should work if you can get the shutter blades thoroughly dry afterwards. Maybe dunk in a very light solvent as a last pass before drying with air. Watching your progress with interest!

[scott]

Well, cleaning went realty well. My little sonicator does thee minute cycles. Filled with water, put the shutter in a short Ball jar, covered with naphtha, and ran four consecutive cycles. Removed a TON of, well, gunk. Dumped, refilled, repeated. Did this three times. Shutter looked 100x better - clean, shiny. Everything worked smoothly, but... blades still refused to close. Added a little oil to a few posts (found several references on Alphax shutters that suggested this) and things were better but not right. Then, lost another spring. It had disconnected, I moved it to a safe section of my towel-covered work surface, and when I went to reinstall, it was gone. Done. I'm kind of over this.

Helical is still stuck solid. Going to hit it with the heat gun. No more Mr. Niceguy. The other Bolsey has no discernible split image. At all. Maybe sounds like the mirror is rattling around inside, but the shutter is closer to working. Slower speed still don't close the blades; 1/200 does, and T and B work. Perfect. Will be transplanting that one. Call me Dr. Frankenstein. It has a weird flash contact kind of stuck on the thread for the shutter cable. Fine with that. Will probably troll for another donor B to fix this one, or cobble together a Frankencamera.

Also taking a five minute break from this. Aside from gnat-like attention span, am about to jump on some basement rehab (drywall, paint, flooring, lights). This stuff is on more of a deadline; the camera needs to be functional by July. Priority shift and scope creep.

[scott]

I've renamed this thread and am kind of pivoting because I'm apparently going to become a Bolsey enthusiast. Will just add my hypomanic thoughts in one thread in case anyone's bored.

I'm calling shenanigans on the Model C. The list of issues is growing, and while not insurmountable, isn't something I want to attack right now. Shutter is now missing a spring on the blade return. Helical is frozen dead, not with desiccated grease, but aluminum corrosion. And latest joy: The film advance doesn't work. I'm out. Putting it back together for later evaluation. I really want a Model C: I'm now trolling eBay for an eventual bargain that isn't a complete basket case.

The B22 PF generously sent me arrived a couple days ago (thanks again, PF!). Wonderful little camera. The Set-o-matic system is wonky fer sure, but I think it will be fun when I get used to it. In wonderful shape, but I can't seem to get it to fire at anything other than about 1/10. Guessing that a little cleaning is in order. PF, correct me if I'm wrong - non-zero chance I'm just clueless on use.

The Model B I bought to cannabalize is actual in wonderful shape, shutter almost works (1/200 works fine, slower hangs), and has a Velostigmat rather than the Anastigmat found on the C. According to google, the Velostigmat is a more corrected, better coated version of the anastigmat. So, maybe bonus. Cleaning up the shutter. Main issue seems to be that there is no split image int he rangefinder. There are actually several threads on breaking into the tops (one from Rik Oleson), so I'm hopeful the mirror is bouncing around, or that I can get a new first surface on and adjust the rangefinder to accommodate. Also has a half case that, with a little work, would be more than serviceable.

I guess in Japan these cameras are called "Cutie Cameras" and are popular because, well, they're cute. Not sure how I got to this point in life, but here I am - I like the Cuties now...