Rolleiflex T Stiff Lever and Scratches

[PatrickT]

Hi All,

Just got a Rolleiflex T (I think that's what it is....) from my Dad who hasn't used it in quite some time (maybe 5 - 10 years or so). Before that it was professionally CLA'd (or whatever you want to call it). I put a roll of expired XP2 through it and had it processed. Two problems I noticed.

One is that the film advance lever is incredibly stiff...to the point that I thought I might break it. It is only stiff when the film is being wound. Without film, it feels fine.

The second thing is that the negatives I received back all have a bunch of little vertical scratch marks on them. We have determined that the scratches were not caused by the lab that processed the film.

Could these two problems be related? What can I do about them? I am really looking forward to using this camera and already ahve a bunch of film coming to me soon!

Thanks!
Patrick

 

[Henryah]

Dear Patrick
Your Rollei suffers from stiffened grease and oil in the gears, the film should be loaded over the rollers and check the position of the pressure plate.
Good luck Henry

 

[PatrickT]

Dear Patrick
Your Rollei suffers from stiffened grease and oil in the gears, the film should be loaded over the rollers and check the position of the pressure plate.
Good luck Henry

Hi Henry, thank you so much for the reply. I loaded the film UNDER the first roller and over the second roller (which is what I thought the manual told me to do). I will load it over both rollers this time and see what happens.

Thanks again,
Patrick

PS. I'm assuming this is what probably caused the scratches?

 

[Al Kaplan]

The more expensive Rolleiflexes have a "feeler roller". You thread the film under it and when it senses the increased thickness of the taped film on the paper if sets the counter. The T uses the arrows on the paper aligned with marks in the camera. If you thread the paper and run the film under that roller you'll drag it across what isn't exactly smooth metal. Don't thread the film under anything and you should be fine.

 

[PatrickT]

Thank you Al, this seems to ahve fixed the problem of the stiffness in the lever (although I won't know about the scratches until I get it processed. I'm sure it will be fine.

Thanks again!

 

[Al Kaplan]

Well, Patrick (do you ever get called "Mr. T" after that TV show character? I think the show was The A-Team) let us know if it works. If you've been feeding the film under the roller it should solve the problem. As for the winding "stiffness" it's most likely just the increased friction from dragging it under the roller.

 

[Sanders McNew]

Hi Henry, thank you so much for the reply. I loaded the film UNDER the first roller and over the second roller (which is what I thought the manual told me to do) ...
PS. I'm assuming this is what probably caused the scratches?

You load a T over the rollers.
I made this mistake once --
the camera was impossible to
wind and the negatives were
scratched afterwards.

 

[PatrickT]

Yep, that was the problem! Now that I loaded it correctly, the wind lever is MUCH easier to operate. I'll see when I get the negs aback tomorrow if the scratches are gone or not! I have a feeling they will be 🙂

 

[Steve M.]

Congratulations Patrick, and happy shooting w/ what sounds like a nice camera. Most camera problems are not this easy to track down. By the way, if you jot down your camera's serial number (usually on the front top area above the lens area) and do some googling you can find a couple of web sites that will tell you which model you have and when it was made.