FSU Repairperson in Oz?

H

hammerman

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the FED-S i just took posession of has a prob in the takeup mechanism. i can roll on about 15 frames before it starts to start making a kind og grinding crunchin sound when i wond on, then jam and tear the sprocket holes on the film, mainly at the bottom. just short of getting out the vice grips i have read the thread on tearing down FEDs systematically and will look into it gently but i'd rather a proper chopper get into and fix it knowledgeably. i live five hours from melb but we do get the post once a week or so..

any ideas?

ta.

dj in the bush
 
Not sure what a Fed-s is, if its the same as Zorki 1 (think maybe it is) they are really easy to work on. I started on Kiev 4, boy thats a real mongrel, by comparasion the Fed 1, Zorki 1's are a dream. Only thing to watch out for is the retaining plates behing the lens mount and paper spacers.
Following links maybe some help.

http://members.myactv.net/~je205d/LIIrestore.htm

http://jay.fedka.com/index_files/Page455.htm.

If you need help give me a shout or if you like email me .

Im in the S.E. of S.Aus

ron
 
cheers, ron. the FED-S is essentially a FED1 with an added shutter speed of 1/1000. i'll sort myself out on a saturday morning, read the Age and cut the grass. then i'm onto it, i think. but if you hear a noise from over here it'll be a spring flying into the dam.

thanks.

dj (metung, east gippsland, vic)
 
Had a thought DJ, check the rewind stuff , maybe as the film advances the knob tightens up. Seem to recall that happening to another make, not sure if its revalent to the Fed/Zorki.
Good luck. have u got water in the dam !!.

ron
 
I wonder if there is enough tension in the take-up spool? It should turn by hand but only with perseverance. If it's too loose the advancing film has nowhere to go and the film may be tearing as the sprocket wheel tries to wind on the film.

It is adjustable. There is a screw deep inside the forks which puts the clutch under enough tension to wind on the film but not overide the sprockets. That will give you uneven frame spacing, too.

Just hold the forks, however. They are turned by cogs in the wind mechanism and putting too much strain on them will maybe cause something to strip.

Holding the fork with needlenosed pliers & screw up the adjuster inside is how it's done.

Check out the clutch is my sugestion.

Murray, Brisbane.

(Dams down to 20% here, still :-( )
 
thanks ron and murray. the rewind spool is sticky, ron, so i'll have a good look around on the weekend at that. and it has that grindy sound, too, a bit like the Yardman when it goes over a wombat. i'll have to get my specs sharpened, murray, to see the adjustment in the takeup winderer but that is also a logical prob. kinda like having it go wrong at both ends, eh?

dams are full here for the first time if five years. we had the huge rains and river floods from the Snowy in june, unusual in this area, after the huge bushfires last feb, not unusual in this area. we've had good drizzle but i ain't watering the roses however the lemon tree is happy as.

ta. will report back.

dj
 
Listen to Murray, reckon he's on the money. If the take-up spool is too tight will also cause trouble, as the take up spool fills the diamater increases pulling more film than the sprockets allow so either way will likey be the problem, Kiev's have a notorious problem with uneven frame spacing for the same reason. Both the Zorkis I have were horribley rough and stiff till I read up on Jay,s info. Washed all gears with shellite (same as lighter fluid) and oiled and greased. Found Daiwa fishing reel oil very good. Inox no melt high temp EP grease . Zorki's now smooth as silk and whisper quiet like my old Leica M2 was (amazing how the memory dims with time ! sold all my Leica gear late 60's to rear a family, now reliving my youth !).
BTW also have an RB67 as well as other MF stuff.

ron
 
thanks for the help to date. i did a bit of fiddling around with some screws and it seems to work a bit bettr. less gringing but not like butter as yet. i ran a roll of film through it last night, a dummy roll of 36 where previously i couldn't get past frame 15 or so.but i do have to go slow.

i wrote to my brother in the US who has been a tech for 30 years and is famliar with the russian 6x6s. i asked him to design a rewind knob and filmadvnce knob for my ageing tender fingers, that could slipover the existing knobs. the following is his response. now i remember why we live half a world apart...

his solution:

I've already fixed the wind-rewind inconvenience:

1. Take your Dremel and clap on an almost completely used cutting wheel
2. Grind (you're familiar with the sound, eh) a set of cross points, link a Philips head screw, into the top of the Rewind knob
3. When you need to rewind, use your Sears 7.2 volt screwdriver
4. Caution: Be sure you are in the Forward drive mode
5. Duct taping the screw driver to the Rewind knob makes for faster film roll replacement during those high speed film-changing times while shooting the Footie-guys.
6. If you ever sell the camera, just fill-in the cross-cuts with red paint and tell the buyer they are buying the Swiss version of your Leica copy.


And for the Film Advance knob: Because the knob goes almost all the way around per exposed frame I suggest:

1. Remove the Knob from the camera using the appropriate set of large pliers
2. Gently place the knob, bottom down, on a stack of books or other loose literature
3. Take a used or unused (for those finicky about appearances) faucet handle and place it gently in alignment on top of the knob. I prefer the four-handle faucet as opposed to the one or two-handle variety for speed and general appearances to not look like a cheapy, or to add the "copy" cat catcalls from the media.
4. Weld the faucet handle to the knob using resin core solder
5. Be careful not to evaporate the solder by using a low-temperature weld of diluted acetylene mixed with a near-empty bottle of propane
6. Let the adaptation cool before handling. This would be good time to dowse the fire you created from stupidly using books as a work space. You should have caught my joke by now. Use a thin piece of sheet aluminium on top of the book/paper stack -- refer to #2 above.
7. Reassemble the camera body immediately after Dremeling and soldering so the whole camera can cool at the same time for a better fit and happier camera.
8. After cooling and putting out the other fire from my second joke, load a roll of your best film
9. Enjoy your shoot with a proud expression of being the fastest shooter in town.
10..You will now be able to advance your film to the end of the roll, sans sprocket holes. Who needs them anyway?

You now have a completely refitted adapted copy of a Leica.

If none of the above works, don't do any of it again.

--------thanks, tom...

dj
 
right, campers. here's the duff. my brother is quite the humourist, yes. inventive and helpful in mind but about as voluntary as a brother whose day it is to take the rubbish out. but he does make me smile and on skype i'm much better looking.

ok, i had the lens mount ring milled to precision on the reverse side, turning it 180 degrees to allow the CV 28/1.9 lens barrel markings to sit on top, straight, square to the body and no light leaks. seems i got a few extra paper gaskets in the FED camera case when i looked to see if it had any loose rubles in it.

this milling of about a millimetre (a fair bit, as most would know) made the focus register on the barrel measure exactly 1 metre when i checked the film plane with a tape. 1 metre on the tape equalled 1 metre on the lens barrel. i was stoked.

nuh. shot a roll of film and shoved at the kiosk lady with confidence and she took it with minimum wage disdain and lack of interest. got it all back in two hours and the pics were about as blurry as the morning after the melbourne cup (next tuesday, by the way...great venue for some country racing "street" shots).

now, DOF focussing at f8-16 in daylight gives me good crisp images. but f2.8-ish at night with DOF focussing gives me very soft piccies, too soft to call "aht, mate." AND spot rangefinder focussing in any light conditions gives me soft as soft is. no focus whatsoever. somethings out, i reckon.

you've all been great help, ta. but i think, for the sake of a glove box camera i should probably get a Jupiter 12 and just call it an experience.

whaddayathink, eh but?

dj, goin bush to hide from my own bad habits. good thing there's no trouble and strife anymore...
 
A J-12 may not give you better results if the mount is not correctly set up...

One thing's for sure, I hope you keep posting on here, your humour has me in pieces! Ever thought of writing?
 
Jeez, mate, I hate to think you're going to butcher this 'gem' 🙂

I have been into several of these beauties and maybe I can resurrect it back to useful?

Send me a PM if you're game. I am.

The 1mm off the lens flange is drastic. There has to be someting else far simpler to give you all this strife.

Murray
Brisbane, Oz
 
thanks, murray. will PM and perhaps sort something out. it is only the front screw-on ring and, like you say, i didn't go it with anything other than care. my jeweller fried is german and i used to live and work in germany some years back and his attitude was the same, go with care and do a clean job. it is a clean job and this weekend i'll rin some film through it with the dedicated 50/f2 lens that came with it. my brother has workes as a camera tech for yonks and he has said what you said...something i don't know about me, eh?...but he has access to a lot of parts and bits where he lives in florida and actually has some spare rings. so if i DO butcher it he'll come to my rescue ONCE...as much as a younger brother is allowed to in the I'll Tell Mum if You Don't Book...

but i appreciate your offer and given my lack of knowledge and your interest in the camera if it gets to a point where the ring isn't the issue then i'll give you a hoy. good to have team players. nah, got more respect for the machine than to go it like a bull in the springtime paddock. i won't touch anything precious, promise. well, that's what the ball and chain said, anyway.

cheers,

dj
 
Fair enough - the offer is there. See how it goes and decide what you want after trying more films.

The lens/film register should be 28.8 (+- .02)mm so you can see how much a 1mm shave could ruin things.

I have a Zorkii-4 here that was out of register by 0.1mm on the lower edge and I repacked it accordingly. As I put the mount back on I measured the ring itself out of curiosity and to my surprise it was 0.1mm thicker on the bottom edge. Just badly made.

Hope it works out for you.

Murray Brisbane, Oz
 
country races today, Melb Cup day out here in the bush. shooting with the R4M and the Digilux 3. can't risk the FED this time. waiting for the girls' big blow and the champers spew-a-thon at the end of the day. bugger the races...

BUT, the FED-S... i should clarify, i only cut another recess in the lens attachment ring that fits agains the body housing and the recess accommodates the metal "cap" of the top of the camera on the front just under the viewfinder...the ring overlaps the metal casing. i only cut another recess in order to invert the thread to make the CV lens read from the top. but all advice and warnings are heeded and appreciated. didn't butcher anything, and didn't reduce the lens/film register at all, just milled a mil out of the existing fitting the same as was already there on the opposite turn of the ring. anyway, a cheap throwaway salvageing fed will replace that part easily if necessary in future. sorry if that sounds sacriligious to the worshipful company of fed owners...and i appreciate the devotion.

for now, after all that, i have the original 50/2 lens back on the FED as i was in need of the CV28 on the original Bessa R4M i'm using today, so all is back to normal, nearly. i have made precision paper gaskets to accommodate the "extra" recess at the bottom of the ring and have run a roll of cheap and nasty film through it and no light leaks and focusses fine. and the otherwise modification gave me sharp end results without any shift in lens to film distance...measured with a depth-seeking micrometer.

but wasn't all that fun, eh but? and thanks for all the help. will keep my brother riled up and off his meds for any future suggestions. he once put a Schneider-Kreutznach Convertible 210 onto a box he made from foamcore and a gaffer tape and card slide for 120 sheet film. the lens cost a couple of thou and the body cost 45 cents. just goes to show...he even made a tilt for convergence correction. it shot fine. have a pic somewhere...

cheers,...dj
off to the trots
 
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