Chris Frear
Newbie
Dear All,
Totall newbie here. Just returning to film cameras from Digital .
I picked up a Balda Baldix for £10 inc postage via ebay. The Bellows are light tight, but the shutter is sticky. Any advice on how to take the camrea apart and clean would be gratefully received.
I've heard of one guy using lighter fluid to clean the lenses, can you use isopropyl alcohol too? I have some kicking aobut which I nornally use to clean tape heads on an old reel to reel machine.
Chris
Totall newbie here. Just returning to film cameras from Digital .
I picked up a Balda Baldix for £10 inc postage via ebay. The Bellows are light tight, but the shutter is sticky. Any advice on how to take the camrea apart and clean would be gratefully received.
I've heard of one guy using lighter fluid to clean the lenses, can you use isopropyl alcohol too? I have some kicking aobut which I nornally use to clean tape heads on an old reel to reel machine.
Chris
Mr_Flibble
In Tabulas Argenteas Refero
Isopropyl won't harm your lenses. Be careful if it has a coating though. It does sometimes leave a film when it evaporates.
I use lighter fluid to flush shutters and other small mechanical devices. It leaves no residue and has often helped me to get classic cameras working properly again.
Just let a drop or two soak into the mechanism and fire it a few times. Then let it sit so the fluid evaporates.
Good luck with your Balda
I use lighter fluid to flush shutters and other small mechanical devices. It leaves no residue and has often helped me to get classic cameras working properly again.
Just let a drop or two soak into the mechanism and fire it a few times. Then let it sit so the fluid evaporates.
Good luck with your Balda
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Watch carefully thought that naptha (lighter fluid) doesn't spill on areas where it might dissolve or loosen adhesives. It's also not good for plastics, though I doubt there are any plastics in a Baldix.
FallisPhoto
Veteran
1. Unscrew the front lens element. Unscrew the center element. You'll need a lens wrench. From there, you remove the plate covering the front of the shutter and remove the cam ring from under that. If you're a beginner, stop right there! get a small artist's water color brush and squirt a little naptha (lighter fluid) into the shutter. Work it into the gears with the brush. Operate the mechanism a couple of times. Flush the dirty lighter fluid out with clean lighter fluid. Repeat.
2. Take a cotton swab, dip it in clean naptha and swab the front of the shutter blades. Now swab the dirty lighter fluid off the front of the shutter blades with the dry end of the cotton swab. Repeat. Remove the rear lens element and do the same thing to the back of the shutter blades. repeat. Go back to the front and repeat, operating the shutter blades a few times while they are wet. Repeat this, front and back, about 50 times (no, I'm not exaggerating), operating the shutter blades each time they get wet.
3. Now clean the lenses. You use swabs for this too, and you'll twist them as you go, so as to keep a fresh surface against the glass at all times and lift grit away from the glass instead of grinding it in. Yeah, you're going to go through a LOT of swabs, so I hope you bought a big box. One of those biggest boxes, with 1,000 swabs, usualy lasts me through about three cameras. Anyway, first you go over the lenses with a brush and blower, to remove grit. Then you go over it with naptha, to remove oil haze and fingerprints. Then you go over it with distilled water, to remove everything else and (maybe) the thin film that the naptha left on there (naptha is slightly base and will react with fatty acids to create soap). Naptha won't leave a residue on a lens that has no oil on it. In any case, it comes off with distilled water and water alone won't get oil.
FallisPhoto
Veteran
It is a whole lot less aggressive than any kind of alcohol and as for harming plastic, it comes in plastic bottles. I've been using it for years with no negative effects. You can even use it to clean very delicate plastic fresnel lenses if you have to. Now alcohol, on the other hand, will turn a plastic fresnel lens opaque and white in half a second. Were you thinking of alcohol?
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Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Hmm ... Yes, coulda been alcohol, as I used both recently on a job.
Funny you should mention fresnel lenses ...
I will say that the alcohol used (90% isopropyl) comes in a plastic bottle, and my Zippo fluid in steel.
Funny you should mention fresnel lenses ...
I will say that the alcohol used (90% isopropyl) comes in a plastic bottle, and my Zippo fluid in steel.
FallisPhoto
Veteran
Hmm ... Yes, coulda been alcohol, as I used both recently on a job.
Funny you should mention fresnel lenses ...
I will say that the alcohol used (90% isopropyl) comes in a plastic bottle, and my Zippo fluid in steel.
If you use alcohol, get the kind you buy in a hardware store (denatured alcohol) which is 100% pure. The idea is to get the crud OFF of the lens, not toput 10% contaminants on it. Denatured alcohol comes in tin cans. NEVER use alcohol anywhere near a fresnel lens! If you did, and it isn't too bad, and if you can get the fresnel lens out, you can sometimes polish the damage off of the smooth side, (like if someone has tried cleaning the inside of a TLR with alcohol, as one of my clients once did), but if it gets on the grooved side, it's just ruined.
Zippo, by the way, is a lot more base than Ronsonol. I've had Zippo burn my leg, back when I was carrying a leaky lighter. It works fine for cleaning though; both Zippo and Ronsonol dissolve grease. Zippo also turns some of it to soap. Either way works. You get more of a film with Zippo, but it comes right off with distilled water.
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batterytypehah!
Lord of the Dings
I agree with what FallisPhoto wrote in his first post. May sound scary, since you're describing yourself as a newbie, but in practice it isn't bad. Those old folders are easy to work on. The parts are (relatively!) large and sturdy, and it's usually pretty evident what each one does.
Also, with those simple triplet lenses, you only need to unscrew the front and rear elements to gain access to all the surfaces for cleaning. I've had good success with putty knives of various widths standing in for proper lens wrenches. I believe the glass on yours would be old enough to be uncoated, so yeah, get at it with vodka or whatever. (Early lens coatings, OTOH, can be very delicate.)
Do remember to work slowly, use well-fitting screwdrivers, and don't force anything. Also, take loads of pictures with a digicam along the way.
Lastly, you'll need to either mark the infinity position of the front element before you take it off, or re-establish infinity focus after reassembly with a piece of ground glass in the film plane. Which is so easy to do that there's really not much point to the marking method.
Also, with those simple triplet lenses, you only need to unscrew the front and rear elements to gain access to all the surfaces for cleaning. I've had good success with putty knives of various widths standing in for proper lens wrenches. I believe the glass on yours would be old enough to be uncoated, so yeah, get at it with vodka or whatever. (Early lens coatings, OTOH, can be very delicate.)
Do remember to work slowly, use well-fitting screwdrivers, and don't force anything. Also, take loads of pictures with a digicam along the way.
Lastly, you'll need to either mark the infinity position of the front element before you take it off, or re-establish infinity focus after reassembly with a piece of ground glass in the film plane. Which is so easy to do that there's really not much point to the marking method.