Canonet QL19

[tykos]

Hi all, i need to ask a couple of questions about a Canonet QL19.
When i bought it the rangefinder wasn't too bright, and the shutter button went all the way down without opening the shutter. The advance lever doesn't move.
I searched a little bit, and the internet told me that with some zippo fluid on the blades the shutter will work again. I opened the front lens, used a cotton swab, 4 or 5 days in a row.
Nothing happens.
If i move the blades with a screwdriver, i can easily open them, they don't seem to be stuck.
What can i do?

Rangefinder.
When i opened the top, this was the situation:

The mirror is detached, and completely away from its position.
I can see the glue on the support, but:
- what glue can i use?
- i have to put the glue on the silver side or on the glass side?

thanks

 

[sevo]

The mirror is detached, and completely away from its position.
I can see the glue on the support, but:
- what glue can i use?
- i have to put the glue on the silver side or on the glass side?

The silver side is to the front of the optical path - there never should be any glue on that. If you can avoid it, don't put any glue on the rear (glass) surface on the mirror either! Usually you only need to put tiny dabs on the edges.

Back when it was made, the industry used shellac or epoxy - both are still valid options, especially when you want to do a restoration grade repair. Personally I mostly use gelled UV curing PMMA cement for optics assembly nowadays, as that allows me to lock a mirror in place within seconds when I have found the proper position - with the old cements, you had to build some guide to position the mirror until the glue cures.

Do not use liquid air-curing PMMA ("Superglue") - it vaporizes during curing and will deposit as haze on the mirror front. Nor any other cement with a liquid or ropey consistence - anything that gets on the silvered side may be impossible to remove without destruction!

 

[rick oleson]

That's great advice on the glue: you can now get kits at hobby shops, complete with a little UV curing light. Absent that, I've used contact cement successfully, which doesn't get brittle when it dries; it makes a good secure repair without being irreversible if you need to reposition the part.

On the shutter - that advice you'd read was referring, I think, to the Canonet QL17 GIII, which has a virtually inaccessible shutter (and whose usual mode of failure is the blades sticking together). You can get inside the shutter in the QL19.... after removing the front cell, there is a retaining ring that holds the front panel on. Behind that is the Selenium cell, which is of course tethered from behind by a wire. It may be easiest to remove the front shutter panel from the camera first (4 screws hidden under the leatherette near the shutter) so that you can feed some slack wire through to get this out of the way. Behind that, it's a conventional leaf shutter, which probably needs the escapement to be cleaned with some more of that Zippo fluid.

 

[tykos]

Thank you all.
I was at a repair store to retrieve an old lens, and i left my canonet there.
The repairman said that maybe he will need to tear up the leatherette to reach the shutter and clean it properly, since my intervention from outside was not successfull.

 

[rick oleson]

yeah, that could be.