Flaky Aperture Blades

dgriff2

dfgriff57
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Hi all, just bought a Konica S2 off fleabay and the aperture blades have what appears to be some sort of metal flaking on them, and some are on the rear element. Is this a hard fix to perform. I would appreciate any help from the guru's here if possible.

Don
 
Take off the rear element if you can and clean the blades with lighter fluid and q tips.

Let the blades dry, reassemble and see how the shutter works.
 
Flaky aperture blades

Flaky aperture blades

Thanks Jon, are the aperture blades accessible front and back through the rear of the camera? Most of the flakes are on the front side of the aperture blades. Thanks
 
I have never worked on this camera. You will have to take a look and see if you can unscrew the front or rear element to get at the blades. Most rangefinders with leaf shutters are set up with the shutter blades and aperture blades sandwiched between the front and back lens elements. It might be hard to get at the rear element, depending how it is set into the camera body.

You will need something like a spanner or a scraper blade of the right size to put in the slots of the element to turn it out.
 
The Konica Auto S2 isn´t too complicated.
If your problem is on the front, unscrew the thin aluminun ring retaining the hood, then with extreme care lift the front plastic ornamental ring, unsolder the two wires from the CdS cell (blue and red), remove the plastic assembly, and then with a round piece of thick rubber unscrew the front element (may be you can do it with naked fingers).
For reassembly, just reverse steps.

For the rear side, you have to peel the leatherette in the front of the body, unscrew the four screws holding lens plate, and carefully remove the assy from camera body. Then you can unscrew the rear element with a spanner or needle nose pliers. The shutter and iris are, as Jon said, sandwiched between the front and rear groups.

Take extreme care with the blue and red wires coming out from the cell through the lens barrel as they are very thin and mechanically weak. Sometimes they are corroded enough to make the meter not working, and you need to replace them (this replacement job is a real pain in the a**, and I´m the middle of this).

For reassembly, go in reverse order.
Good luck.

Ernesto
 
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