Vintage film cameras

[johnnyrod]

Yes and no, I guess it is, but for each part, there is only one way to place it. Checked it against the moon tonight, infinity focus is definitely off. Also had a fiddle with the other Ikoflex, the Ic, which was jammed. Not sure what was going on but it's firing now, maybe it's the way you have to reset the film counter otherwise the auto frame spacing/double exposure lock doesn't work. Anyway the glass is fairly clean, but again the lenses need collimation. The shutter has a problem, it sticks at 1s or 1/2s, but most of the time it just snaps. Also you can't select a speed higher than about 1/25, I think just before you get to 1/50 the dial jams. It's very stiff too, so something may be bent or broken inside, or something loose in there jamming it. Need to find out how to get into it. I think the only working folder I have is my old Certo!

[Kenzie]

Trying to wrap my head around the issue. If the lens is focused to 6ft is the rangefinder saying its at 5 ft? Or are you measuring it?

[johnnyrod]

I've already fiddled with the RF so we can ignore that for now. So when the lens is in focus at 6ft it says (maybe) 5ft on the scale i.e. it's further from the film than the focus scale suggests it should be. So infinity focus is actually about 15ft on the scale, and as you go towards the infinity mark, the lens is still moving backwards. The RF works by an arm that basically measures how far the lens has moved back or forward, infinity is fully back. At this point the arm has lost contact because the lens has moved so far back. I think it's maybe 1-2mm but I need to try to figure that out, maybe there is a spacer missing, but from photos it doesn't look like it. It would be a crude way to collimate, but if it were close enough and the RF conicides well enough with the lends being in focus, then it would do.

[johnnyrod]

Sorry yep am measuring the distances with a tape measure to the film plane.

[Kenzie]

Bit of a long shot but this blog mentions rangefinder adjustment. You will need to pop the link into Google translate but it stands to reason if the took it apart they had to rebuild it.

https://www.kitamura.jp/photo/repairer/2012/re867.html

Did you by any chance take the focus mech apart? If you did it maybe in the wrong position. I.E if you took the heli apart it could be one notch out?

[johnnyrod]

I was making some measurements tonight, the error in the focus isn't a fixed distance from the film plane, but it is fairly consistent as a rotational angle. It also roughly corresponds to one helicoid thread. It's always been like this, since I've had it. I did try to refit the helicoid in a new position but the short story is that it just took some of the travel of the focus away.

[Kenzie]

Don't know what to suggest Johnny. It seems to be a rare-ish camera but I'm surprised that there isn't a service guide.

[johnnyrod]

I know, it's a real puzzle. I tried posting again on FB, so far the usual waste of time, but let's see if someone can actually say something useful. Now I've figured out it's an error in the rotation rather than the simple distance from the film plane, maybe I'll have to look again at the helicoid, however I've spent a LONG time on it so far so I'm not sure what i haven't investigated yet. I still need some info on how to collimate the two Ikoflexes as well! I'm a little wary of taking too many bits off them just yet as I'm not really sure what's in there.

[johnnyrod]

I meant to say thanks for the link, God knows where you found it!

[Kenzie]

Not being able to sleep and needing something to pass the time.