skuidriver
Member
Hello, i am new to the forum. and I got myself a Canonet QL17 from ebay a few weeks ago. It is my first rangefinder camera. I found a lot of good answers to all the questions I had here at this forum. I got my camera and it looked really nice, like nobody had touched it in 30 years or so.. but I soon found out that I do have the well known sticky shutter problem. so I searched a lot and finally fixed it. I'm very happy with it cause I never did any camera repair before.
So, but the real reason I'm writing this Thread is because I really had some issues removing the lenses to get to the shutter blades. by the way, I had no spanner wrench or prof. camera repair tolls at all and I didn't want to buy any, because they would have been more expensive that the QL17. 🙂
so I made myself a own kind of spanner tool, which looks like that, and it worked really good at the first ring and the first lens element! it is a very cheap version and maybe you have to grind to ends a little that they fit in the holes of the rings... for me it worked just like it is
http://img140.imageshack.us/f/p0301111212.jpg/
The second lens element was so frozen that I couldn't get it of... I tried everything but just too frozen..
So I thought I'll try it form the back.. everywhere I read that it is the harder more difficult way to reach the shutter blades form the back. but after I build myself another tool it was very easy. I thought too easy for the "harder" way. but everything worked out so far. Here's the tool:
I ground the tips of a old tweezer form ca. 2 mm to 1/2 mm, or whatever to holes in the ring needs.
http://img145.imageshack.us/f/p0301111213.jpg/
after that I bend the tips to the outside with a plier just like that:
http://img249.imageshack.us/f/p03011112151.jpg/
by pulling the tweezer together its very easy to get in. and then lock in in the holes and turn around to loosen the lens element. when it was loos I bound the tips of the tweezer back and pulled the element out.
I solved the battery problem with a selfmade battery adapter I purchased form Frans de Gruijter.
Here's a pdf with a manual to build adapters and with a manual to purchase one.
http://www.buhla.de/Foto/batt-adapt-US.pdf
I hope all the repair was worth it. But i must say that I'm really happy with the camera so far. Here are some shots form my first test roll:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51191978@N02/sets/72157625713720760/
Thanks for reading,
Fabian
ps. I'm sorry somehow I was not able to post pictures this is why there are only links!
So, but the real reason I'm writing this Thread is because I really had some issues removing the lenses to get to the shutter blades. by the way, I had no spanner wrench or prof. camera repair tolls at all and I didn't want to buy any, because they would have been more expensive that the QL17. 🙂
so I made myself a own kind of spanner tool, which looks like that, and it worked really good at the first ring and the first lens element! it is a very cheap version and maybe you have to grind to ends a little that they fit in the holes of the rings... for me it worked just like it is
http://img140.imageshack.us/f/p0301111212.jpg/
The second lens element was so frozen that I couldn't get it of... I tried everything but just too frozen..
So I thought I'll try it form the back.. everywhere I read that it is the harder more difficult way to reach the shutter blades form the back. but after I build myself another tool it was very easy. I thought too easy for the "harder" way. but everything worked out so far. Here's the tool:
I ground the tips of a old tweezer form ca. 2 mm to 1/2 mm, or whatever to holes in the ring needs.
http://img145.imageshack.us/f/p0301111213.jpg/
after that I bend the tips to the outside with a plier just like that:
http://img249.imageshack.us/f/p03011112151.jpg/
by pulling the tweezer together its very easy to get in. and then lock in in the holes and turn around to loosen the lens element. when it was loos I bound the tips of the tweezer back and pulled the element out.
I solved the battery problem with a selfmade battery adapter I purchased form Frans de Gruijter.
Here's a pdf with a manual to build adapters and with a manual to purchase one.
http://www.buhla.de/Foto/batt-adapt-US.pdf
I hope all the repair was worth it. But i must say that I'm really happy with the camera so far. Here are some shots form my first test roll:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51191978@N02/sets/72157625713720760/
Thanks for reading,
Fabian
ps. I'm sorry somehow I was not able to post pictures this is why there are only links!
