A leaf brief

One thing that commonly find with the many cameras that I have worked on is the shutter … the leaf shutter.

Leaf shutter

The leaf shutter that we see today first appeared in 1890, created by Voigtlander. It had four blades. Bausch & Lomb also produced many leaf shutters just after this.

Steinheil, was an optical company that got into the shutter business. Christian Bruns, in 1899, made their first 4 bladed leaf shutter.

Friedrick Deckel and Bruns got together (after leaving Steinheil) and created the Compound shutter in 1905 … the speeds where pneumatically controlled.

1910 Bruns created a mechanical retard mechanism to control the shutter speeds, and this became the Compur shutter.

When you see references to a Compur # something shutter … it refers to it’s physical size … leaf shutters were made in different sizes.

Another name in shutters was Gauthier … created by Alfred Gauthier in 1902. They are known for their many shutters, including the well known Prontor shutter.

Now the Japanese came much later to market their own leaf shutters based on both the Compur or Prontor design … in 1935 Seikosha shutters appeared and later on in 1946 the Copal shutter.

Other names in the shutter business … Wollensak and Ilex, both American companies.

Rolleicord … the front end.

I was finally able to get a hold of a Rollei TLR. This Rolleicord III came in a pretty banged up state. The front cover metal was bent out of shape … and I think some prevous owner continued to use the camera. The mechanisms all appear to work, so my job is to get it somewhat back in shape.

I will say that TLR’s are one of the easiest cameras to work on … hmm, I think I may have said this before … as they seem to be so mechanically similiar that it is easy to work them out.

The hood did not close cleanly … this is because it was also bent out of shape. This was the easy part, as all I needed to do was lightly twist (and push) the opened hood until the metal leafs were back in alignment.

The magnifier was also too flappy … the pivoting pin has slipped out of one side. It appears that one of the metal sides was also bend out of shape, so just needed to be pushed back into position to keep the pin from moving sideways.

I ned to get the front cover off. Carefully peel off the leatherette. You should be able to get it off in one piece as it has a paper backing.

Note: if you just want to get at the blades you do not need to remove the cover. You can just unscrew the front element.

Next unscrew the knobs from the shutter, aperture, and speed arms.

The four large shiny screws hold the entire front onto the the rest of the camera. I suggest you go with the inner layers. Remove the four small brass screws hold the outside cover plate on. The next set of five screws holds the lens/shutter.

Lift and jiggle to get these two covers off.

You will notice that there is a hidden arm (lower left corner) that is coupled to the lens/shutter plate … this arm is used to move the paralax correcting screen in the viewfinder. Make a mark to note its position if you take the screw off.

Lets look at the shutter since we are here …

 

Very typical.

Unscrew the front lens element.

Then turn the lock.

Twist the cover to match up with the notches.

 

Always note the position of the speed cam … and all the little thingies that ride the grooves. … and there we are.

The shutter cocking ring sits in the middle here and is spring loaded … so it may pop out. This image shows it in firing position.

You can continue to take of the rest of the front by removing the four large screws … and as I noted before, the arm for the parallax correction.

Note where the shims go.

At this point you can also get at the viewing mirror to clean it … but watch out for the ground screen.

The front cover was the major fault on this camera. The sides and top of the cover had been impacted by things (it had to be more than once to affect that many areas).

You can unscrew the retaing ring and all those layers of dials will slide right out.

Use a wood dowel and a hammer to tap out the dents.

Before putting it back together, remember to clean the old lube off and make the numbers easier to read.

Add a little dab of new lubricant between the dials. After you secure the retaining ring, make sure everything is moving smoothly.

Set the shutter and aperture to their topmost position so you know where they are when you put the front plate back on. Don’t secure it until you know that the dials have coupled with them properly.