The Future Of Leica-M Repair ? ?

dcsang

dcsang

Canadian & Not A Dentist
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Nothing in this life is "forever".
Yep.. all things fade, die, get broken, cease operating, and go extinct.
This is true, to the best of my knowledge, for all things material and living in nature.
Heck, we carbon based forms pass on after 80 years or so; some sooner, some later.
We begin to decay shortly after we die.


Yesterday I picked up my M2 from David Yau - it had become jammed last Sunday out of the blue while I was sitting in The Rhino with VictorM, Grainhound, and Jan Normandale.

I took it to David on Monday evening and he looked it over and called me on Tuesday saying that a small part had broken - parts and labour and fixing it would be $125 - a pretty good deal imho.

Upon picking the M2 back up (I could have had it even earlier than yesterday - David forgot to call me earlier in the week when he had finished working on it - that was probably on Wednesday) I talked at length with David's wife as he had stepped out. I told her that he does excellent work and that I recommend him to all the locals and Canadian based RFF members. She said that David trained for this repair work in Germany (Wetzlar and Solms).

I then realized something - David (along with Dan Goldman - DAG-, Sherry Krauter @ Golden Touch, Youxin Ye, Gerry Smith @ Kinderman and any other repair folks) is not immortal.

So.. with the aging of the repair folks (let's face it, looking at the general age of the folks on this forum would suggest that the bulk of us are over 50 and some of these repair folks are as old if not older) who will be the next generation to step in to keep these beasts running smoothly?

Do you think that, with the fading of "film", finding someone with the ability to get these tools fixed or maintained will become harder and harder?

Just something to ponder I guess..

Dave
 
There is a good repairer in the Philadelphia area, alas he only works on SLR's, but he is indeed young. I would guess that many of the young folks currently at Leica may head out on their own if/when demand rises.
 
Youxin is pretty young. He will only work on mechanicals up to about the M4 though. He'll probably end up working on MPs as he's a real enthusiast. Also I think he's doing well with his repair business so there is hope yet. There must be other Youxins out there that we don't know so much about. I think we're safe for a while yet...
 
I've been thinking about the same kind of things things lately, I choose to use mechanical bodies because I believe that they will last longer than electronic ones. But what will happen when some mechanical parts will break, the same way it happened to you?

Well IMHO it seems that someone with decent skills would have an easier time to manufacture a mechanical component rather than produce a PCB from scratch and source the correct electronic bits needed to repair a broken electronic camera =)
 
The film industry (og which Leica is part) should give solutions to these legitimate quests.
A often dreamed about Leica giving courses for customer to make maintenance/repairs to their own cameras.
Once retired I would happily apply, pay and make the trip to attend.
In this way my Leica would die after me.
It seems to me the ultimate solution to the problem.
But it is just a dream
Paul
 
A mechanical camera is not an especially complex piece of equipment. As long as there is demand, there will be repairers.

Some parts can be fabricated at a reasonable price; others cannot. The frame counter on my Retina IIa, for example, is not reparable -- or rather, the part needed would take many hours to make, which means that cannibalization is the only option.

As my first repairer (a Pole, living in Bristol, long dead) said, when I commented on the low price he charged me for a Leica repair, "Leica is not difficult camera to fix, is pleasure to work on, so I do not charge so much. Praktica is horrible camera, so I charge more."

Cheers,

R.
 
I learned how to align and fix my own mechanical Leica's, Hasselblad, Nikon F, etc.

To anyone with instrument technician skills, it isn't hard, and manuals are plentiful. I think there is a league of hobbyists out there who do their own work.

As for parts, that will be a concern as Leica's stockpile runs down. I anticipate there is a global stock situation, as the repair shops (Leica and independent) have common parts, but that too will taper off. Then cannibalization becomes the next option, then custom machining. With electronics, the situation is much more dire. Imagine trying to identify and source a capacitor, resistor, transistor or IC from a 80's camera; highly unlikely to impossible.

And there is a difference in mindset of "do your own" versus "fix someone else's, and charge for and guarantee the work". I've done repairs for others for free (for gratuity, ie. buy me lunch, pay for the mailing cost, pay for the broken part). I haven't crossed the boundary to call myself a professional yet, to charge labour and warranty.

With the M6 and newer, you now need a computer interface to calibrate the meter electronics, so unless you have the software, and harness, you become very limited to what you can do. The M5 and CL are still analog adjustments, same with SL2 and earlier. I can't recall what the control electronics are on the R3, but I'm guessing it is crossing into the CPU or micro-controller era, so meter and even shutter timings and adjustments are out of the realm of a non-Leitz technician.

Now, would I consider teaching repair skills? That would be interesting, and would appeal to me.

....Vick
 
sitemistic said:
The only really good solution is to buy up cameras to steal parts from. While I often hear that it's possible to machine new gears and parts from scratch, I still don't see repairers sitting at a CNC machine (or even a small metal lathe), making gear train parts for old cameras. It just isn't practical.
Click to expand...
I don't know who you're looking to when you say you don't see repairers sitting at a lathe. It isn't me.
I've made many parts for cameras I've had here for repair. As far as gears go:







I made a run of half a dozen of these secondary wind gears for Rollei 35 cameras. It's time consuming, especially for the first one, and may not be worth it for a $100 camera, but for a good Leica? Don't count out a guy with a small lathe.
 
Wow!
Dean, you should start a business, machining part on order for us. Your parts look much better than the original!
One could be tempted even to swap working parts!
Congratulations!
I wish I could learn to do the same.
I even bought a bulky book "tabletop machining" by Joe Martin. Some people build incredible models for museums.
But it looks hard for me. Unless I could take a course. Uhm
Cheers
Paul
 
Dean C Williams said:
I made a run of half a dozen of these secondary wind gears for Rollei 35 cameras. It's time consuming, especially for the first one, and may not be worth it for a $100 camera, but for a good Leica? Don't count out a guy with a small lathe.
Click to expand...

I'm very impressed. That little gear is familiar to me from when I fixed the wind mechanism on my Rollei 35. (And I've really gotten to like the camera, which I didn't expect.) But I couldn't imaging fabricating one on my own.
 
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