A Fed 1 repaint - CLA'd by okvintagecamera

renguney

renguney

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This was a sorry state non working Fed 1. It was laying around in my shelf for 2 years and it was the first camera that I tried to repaint. I did three coats of acrylic paint and one coat of clearcoat on this for testing (I noticed one or two layer of paint is more than enough to me.)

Do not mind the rough looking lens. It didnt came with the aperture engravings and it was the first object that I tried to repaint also. that particular Industar-22 lens is painted but not baked.
The FED 1 camera on the other hand is baked on every layer. Difference on baked - non baked can be clearly seen. I do have a Industar-10 fed lens which matches the look of this camera, with a beautiful black paint also (this time baked, and looking nice.) I feel the paint is a little bit ''too'' thick. but for the first try it is more than OK. clearly it's made to be a user.
Now gifted to my girlfriend so she can enjoy this.
My repaint tests will be continue. (I will take pictures of the camera with different lenses including the I-10 that I mentioned tonight.)
I didn't knew how to reassemble the camera particularly by making a new shutter curtain that is why I sent the camera to Oleg, okvintagecamera.
Clearly, he is a master on these and I do suggest his work to anyone who would like their camera to work nice. This particular one is the first camera that I sent to him and it's the most smooth soviet rangefinder I have ever used.
Did the reskin by my own after I got it and clearly not the best work it fits (I still look for some aki asahi / hugostudio kits that I can use on this)




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More pictures please, don’t worry about the reskin material I have just used something similar on a 1932 Leica II.

Please, more info about the baking and how the paint was applied.
 
Various lenses can be seen. Industar 10, Voigtlander Color Skopar and Industar 12.

The painting is really easy. first you dechrome your camera (after disassemblying the parts.) all parts individually gets dechromed. Couple methods can be used like acids or reverse electrolysis. (very toxic, please do at your own risk.) You paint each part separately and let it get drey to touch. Always touch and work on the parts wearing plastic gloves (any grease including your body oil will ruin the items on painting.) drip each piece to acetone and let it dry before painting. After painted parts safe to touch take them with gloves and put some wires around each wire and create some wire hangers (I dont know the specific name sorry.) Put them inside an oven and bake each part (beware, do not use an oven that you use to cook, painted parts also will contaminate your oven so get a second hand oven only for this)
Hang the parts to the oven and bake (specified time-degrees vary for the paint you use. I use glossy black acyrlic spray paint) Google is your friend for baked parts.
Some cameras are harder to paint, but not our subject. I find the ''Leica IIIF'' (or better a IIIC without the dumb flash sync port) is the most easiest to paint since the top plate comes off really easily. for an instance the Zorki 1 / Fed 1 is harder since the top plate actually has two pieces and to remove the bottom piece of the top plate you actually need to disassemble the entire camera...
Anyways. This is how you do it.

I tried different methods for an instance the fed you see has 3 coat of paint and 1 coat of clearcoat, the Leica on the picture has 2 coats of paint and nothing more.
I also want to make a ''black and nickel'' fed 1 but not for now since I want to make a Leica I replica from a Fed camera. Just got a Fed 1F only for this mod.
so basically for the ''black - nickel'' look you can nickel plate needed parts with electrolysis. It would look really nice. If I had, I would like to nickel plate another Industar-10 and a Fed 28mm f 4.5 (really rare lens). Nickel plated versions (which is to my knowledge nonexistent in real life.) would be really cool.

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A thought.

If you strip the chrome off knobs and dials on certain Leicas you will find nickel underneath which cleans up quite well. In my exreience it worked OK on one IIIc but not another which, from memory, I think was earlier.

At your own risk!
 
Dralowid said:
A thought.

If you strip the chrome off knobs and dials on certain Leicas you will find nickel underneath which cleans up quite well. In my exreience it worked OK on one IIIc but not another which, from memory, I think was earlier.

At your own risk!
Click to expand...
Hello, yes, but my idea is to make a leica looking clone from a Fed 1;
couple things to point out here, if I may.
Fed 1's have a clean vulcanite shell, without any weird metal lines around like some zorki's, and I think the eyecups (or how you call them, I dont know) the round viewfinder windows on the fed's are usually looking more nicer on Fed's rather than Zorki's.
Another thing that I really like about Fed's is this; The Fed 1 type F; Notice the shutter release button and collar. Looks pretty much identical to old Leica's; (Leica standard, Leica 2. etc.) (look at the pictures side by side.)

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(A Fed 1 type F that I recently got from eBay, shipped just today to my house.)

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A Leica Standard, (picture taken from Leitz Auction website.)
Please take a moment and examine the shutter release button and collar on both pictures. Looks pretty much identical, compared to some late Fed 1, Zorki 1's which has this ugly conical shaped collar and a very weird striped button.
I'm not saying they are looking the %100 same, but good enough (to me, to me damn it...)
Some schematics that I made, please feel free to check them out.

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Leica Standard's top plate assembly, screw holes and shutter speed mechanism part. The ring has an outer thread and the speed mechanism's shell fits there by an internal thread. It basically locks there (some of the guys here already know all about this, excuse me if it's too dumb to explain.)

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A Fed 1, how to convert this to a Leica Standard, if you want to make a nearly perfect thing, you need to dechrome this first (protect some places like the shutter speed ring which is riveted to main body etc.) but you basically dechrome it, and after you get the brass surface you use a black epoxy that you made, cover the non needed holes, and make new holes with a benchtop drill for specific screw sizes. Afterwwards you also add the screw threads. Remember that to this point it's still a brass chassis. then you paint it at your own liking (this and that bla bla.) and here you go. You have a nearly identical chassis (the specified screw placements will be made for your own sketchs etc, can be perfected but not possible by working on single unit, sorry not a millionaire.)
You just need to produce two parts, (machinated.) the shutter speed ring, and the shutter speed shell. Well I don't know how much they would cost on every single country or workshop, but I have asked a machinist locally who is specialized on making watchparts and that two piece will cost me 72 usd net.
You might ask that why I am making all this. First of all. I CAN, and this should be enough. I like the idea of producing a handcrafted, unique thing.
keep in mind that this will not have some fake leica branding engravings and stuff. I dont like that, let's keep that away from this mod.
I can create anything, making a fictional camera brand engraving, even put a serial number with 001 or something. It's all up to your imagination at this point (dont put weird symbols too...)
Second of all, You can still add stuff when you have money. Like producing a machinated shell for a viewfinder (identical to standard's one.) just too costly at this point so what I will do is to make a camera which looks like a Leica 1 but without that screwed vf, so basically making a really cool pocket size all stripped down camera which would be nice to paired with a Russar 20mm or a 28mm Fed (I dont have neither of them as today, but a man can dream.)

Sorry for long text, hope you enjoyed it.
I'm still waiting for the Fed to arrive. but hopefully this project will be finished in the next 2 or 3 months.
 
Dralowid said:
A thought.

If you strip the chrome off knobs and dials on certain Leicas you will find nickel underneath which cleans up quite well. In my exreience it worked OK on one IIIc but not another which, from memory, I think was earlier.

At your own risk!
Click to expand...
Hence the information regarding on my last message about why the Fed 1 type F is a really good specimen for these sort of mods;
the Fed 1's doesnt have nickel underneath on any of the parts. you can dechrome all parts, nickel plate some and black paint other to create the same effect of the BP Leica II's. imagine like the rewind lever's head to be nickel but also black painted underneath etc. would look really nice. You can even try to sand down the right edge of the viewfinder window to have a curved look, just like the Leica II.
 
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I have had some success making shutter collars using the ring that holds a traditional bicycle's tyre valve in place on the rim.
 
This is all very cool! I love the idea that you're doing it "just 'cuz". This conversion reminds me of those VW Beetle conversions, back in the Seventies, where people converted Beetles into "Porsches" or some other high-end sports car. I was always tempted, but never got past installing a Mack truck bulldog hood ornament onto mine.
 
two screws holding the spring on the right side of the ring seem to have no connection to the top cover at all. Good to know.
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Retro-Grouch said:
This is all very cool! I love the idea that you're doing it "just 'cuz". This conversion reminds me of those VW Beetle conversions, back in the Seventies, where people converted Beetles into "Porsches" or some other high-end sports car. I was always tempted, but never got past installing a Mack truck bulldog hood ornament onto mine.
Click to expand...
Thank you Retro, well, I'm not making some ''improvements'' such as putting a porsche motor which would improve the HP on a car. This Fed mod can be seen irrelevant. Since you are not adding up anything to the mechanism itself. If you would machine some parts to put some ball bearings to the drums etc, then that would be called as an improvement to the camera. Like I said I'm not going to call this frankestein a ''Leica'' by any way. I'll be calling it a Fed, just like what it is.
The thing is making this mod is not financially feasible. Nobody would buy a Fed for such a high price like this. It's not getting made to be made in multiple units and getting sold online. The work of hours needed for making this camera is so much. I didn't calculated everything but I stripped down every part on the body, cleaned to the most inner bit. Polishing every unevenness on the parts. Here is how it looks right now.

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Fed 1 type f, don't mind the leica part (shutter speed dial chassis, OEM part from Leica I) it's only on the picture for reference. I do this mod with my allowance money, so it's moving little by little. By the end of this month I will going to have a newly made ''ring'' and the ''chassis'' part. I will be closing some holes like I have mentioned before, and also got a really good price for ''brass soldering'' in a local jeweller shop. So the body itself will be getting covered even more nicely (or should I say organically?)
Since I am trying to do anything which is needed on it's absolute maximum, like not even using epoxy and going to the ''same bare metal'' way. It's just not a really good idea for producing this type of things for sale.
Leica's are good, yes. But, I feel the urge to say that the reason why these camera's are worse than leica's have been only happened because of poor machining, poor quality work on assembly etc. Yes, you cannot fix every problems of the poor manifacturing, but by polishing and refitting each part by hand by spending so many hours, you can improve it even better. The Leica 1's are let's say a little bit ''inferior'' in design, compared to Leica II's. So with all the things being made to a Fed 1 (which is a ''inferior, Leica II copy) I think the Fed mod will be super close, or even a little bit better, than the original Leica 1 / Standard's.
 
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