DIY Cleaning Film Chips out of the Shutter box on a IIIc

[Frank Petronio]

Actually I have a IIc. And I foolishly tried to sloppy a cut leader and it got a little eaten up and not all the film pieces are accounted for... so the second curtain is caught on something and is slow to close.

Any DIY advice or am I wrapping it up for Don or Youxin?

 

[john neal]

Frank,

Removing the body shell is very straightforward - check the diagrams on Rick Oleson's site. If you can't find all the bits at that level of disassembly, it's up to you how much further you want to delve.

 

[LeicaTom]

I say send it to Youxin 🙂

Tom

 

[Luddite Frank]

How steady are your hands ?

How steady are your hands ?

I ran into the same issue when running my first roll through a "new" Leica G (black III) a year ago. 🙁

I finally got brave enough to pull the camera apart 😱 and have a look 😕...

Turns-out careless trimming of the leader had cause the film to "split" , one half winding-on to the take-up spool, the other half wrapping around the shutter curtain, until things jammed. 😡 :bang:

I found several film chips jammed in the gears down at the "bottom" of the shutter cage (if camera is in usual taking position).

With the top-works and shutter crate removed from the body shell, I was able to carefully remove the last chips of film, and things started working again 😱.

Now it was time to put it all back together... 🙁 😕...

Eventually, I got everything back together, and the camera seems to work as it should.

In retrospect, I would rather have practiced on a true junker first... 🙄


I would check-out Rick Oleson's info... if things look too scary or you've got "thick fingers" ( or more than two thumbs), and the camera has not been serviced recently, it may be better to send it off to DAG, Youxin, or another reliable repairman.

If you remove the lens, and look into the shutter crate with a Mag-Lite, looking around the bottom of the crate, you may see the offending chips... getting at them could be another matter.

Good luck !

Luddite Frank

 

[payasam]

A friend had managed to put her IIIg in this condition many years ago. I didn't have the know-how to disassemble it, so spent over an hour with air blower and tweezers. I remember wishing that photographic film had iron on it, not silver.

 

[Graybeard]

If you send the camera to Youxin, you'll have it back in a week and it will be working properly.

If you would like to fiddle a bit before sending your jewel away - Try winding and firing the shutter repeatedly without a lens on the camera and inspecting the shutter curtains each time that you repeat. Sometimes the the film fragment(s) will work its (their) way out sufficiently that you can grab a protruding end and pull the offending material out of the shutter.

I did this on a camping trip 40 years ago with the camera (IIIc) on a picnic table and when the film chip appeared I managed to remove it with a pair of slip-jpoint pliers from my tackle box. The camera worked perfectly years until I traded it for a IIIf.