Noserider
Christiaan Phleger
Hi folks got a fun question for the worldwide Leica community since I've never encountered this before. I recently got a very well used M4 (a pushover for strays HA) which came with an M3 baseplate. Not too odd I guess but when I loaded it the Rapid Load spindle seemed to be blocked by some black piece leaving only one of the three Rapid Load slots open for the film leader to enter and engage. It loaded fine just as long as I hit that one slot which took some adjustment for me but frame alignment was correct. I cleaned up this well worn machine and all speeds and rangefinder were in order; not really a surprise since to me it was clear someone used this camera and kept it in good operation. I found a worn M4 baseplate to change out thinking that perhaps the original had been lost and it would be nice to have things somewhat correct and it worked fine and correct with the M4 baseplate with the correct matching Rapid Load wheel engaging the Rapid Load spindle even though I needed to still align the film leader into the one slot. Worked great didn't give any further thought.
After a few months of shooting it seemed that it needed a bit of shutter travel adjustment and perhaps a bit of cleaning internally so I took out my trusty Flexiclamps and took off the top plate to clean the rangefinder windows and give a general check. As part of the shutter release travel adjustment I ended up removing the whole mechanism out of the body shell and while I was that deep I examined the plastic piece inside the Rapid Load spindle and lo and behold it was able to slide out with no problem! This removal now allows me to use any of the slots to load the film leader rendering the Rapid Load system to truly be Rapid since the slight excessive extra effort to align the leader into one of three slots seemed to me as extra work.
So the questions are; has anyone encountered this modification? Was this common? The plastic piece looks like a well thought and in particular a correctly and well sized part leading me to believe that it is not a re-purposed bit of plastic but an actual aftermarket Rapid Load mod along with the use of the M3 baseplate. I've included an image of the part 22mm long and with some very subtle angles to the plastic.
All thoughts and conjecture is open for discussion! Have a great day!
After a few months of shooting it seemed that it needed a bit of shutter travel adjustment and perhaps a bit of cleaning internally so I took out my trusty Flexiclamps and took off the top plate to clean the rangefinder windows and give a general check. As part of the shutter release travel adjustment I ended up removing the whole mechanism out of the body shell and while I was that deep I examined the plastic piece inside the Rapid Load spindle and lo and behold it was able to slide out with no problem! This removal now allows me to use any of the slots to load the film leader rendering the Rapid Load system to truly be Rapid since the slight excessive extra effort to align the leader into one of three slots seemed to me as extra work.
So the questions are; has anyone encountered this modification? Was this common? The plastic piece looks like a well thought and in particular a correctly and well sized part leading me to believe that it is not a re-purposed bit of plastic but an actual aftermarket Rapid Load mod along with the use of the M3 baseplate. I've included an image of the part 22mm long and with some very subtle angles to the plastic.
All thoughts and conjecture is open for discussion! Have a great day!
