How stiff is normal for a Mamiya 6 winder?

[Evan Bedford]

I just received a 6 off of ebay. Looks like there's very little wear. In fact the only paint loss on the entire body seems to be about 6 square mm's on the winder arm.

But the winder is fairly stiff. The trouble seems to originate from the upper left-hand spool axle engagement thingy (when looking at the open back). It seems quite a bit stiffer that it would need to be. Is this normal? Do they tend to get stiffer as the camera gets older? Or are they like that out of the box?

 

[Evan Bedford]

So I looked at all of the other left-hand spool spindles on my other cameras, and none of them were remotely as stiff as the 6 was. In fact, a few of them had no key or dog clutch to hold the spools with (ie, the spool could spin freely, except for the bendable stainless steel thing that puts a bit of pressure on the wound-up film itself).

And being a bit impetuous, and nervous about the integrity of the uptake winding mechanism, I forced the spindle in question with a needle nose pliers. Now it spins somewhat freely, except for two spots 180 degrees apart from each other, where there is obviously some sort of minor detent.

I'm not sure what this will do for film flatness. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

 

[nanthor]

I've had a few of these over the years and I have never noticed any to be stiff enough to notice or mention. I don't mean to worry you but winder problems are the number one failure of the Mamiya 6 camera, IMO. Probably best to be as gentle as possible with it while winding and cross fingers. Good luck, Bob.

 

[Evan Bedford]

Well, I have good news, and I have good news. The first bit of good news is that even after I intentionally stripped whatever mechanism was inside the supply spool spindle to shreds, the film remained perfectly flat, and each exposure advanced evenly (judging from the b&w film I developed last night).

The second bit of good news is the astounding amount of detail that this camera is able to pick up. I always use my Sigma DP1 digital camera to get the right exposure settings (instead of relying on any of my film camera's internal meters). And after re-positioning the DP1 (to get roughly the same field of view as the 6), I was able to compare the two. I've attached the extreme zoom of a part of my bookshelf taken with the DP1. I don't have time to scan the 6's negative, but suffice it to say, that when I look at it under a microscope, I can not only read the publishers' names of the two books, but I can easily discern the font type. Stunning!

 

[david rowland]

Having had a few of these over the years the winding on on all the bodies has been about the same smoothish but firm. One issue that I did have was that the little leaf spring with the roller to keep tension on the take up spool the roller came out and the spring which has a turned over end piece to hold the roller dug into the backing paper and as I wound on it stopped all the gears !!!. I got one of the last complete winding mechanisms available the part cost £345 !! It might be worth getting it serviced just in case. A stitch in time and all that. If you think it's a keeper I would. Dave

 

[quejai]

A while ago, while using my mamiya 6 in the cold backstreets of Japan, it experienced the commonly reported wind-on breakage. It just felt so stiff winding on (due to the cold, I think), and I forced it slightly too much resulting in two popping noises. Then it simply refused to wind on further.

Later, when I disassembled it, I discovered that those noises were actually the sound of some of the teeth of the gear that screws directly into the winding lever snapping off. Anyway I discovered that the gear that the damaged gear meshes with actually has a spring-like clamp mechanism whose sole purpose seems to *add* stiffness to the gear winding experience. It was also covered in 20-year old grease - perhaps it is this that stiffens up more in low temperatures.

Anyway, I removed the stiffener - and since only two teeth out of the 40 on the gear broke - I simply put the damaged gear back in, and now it works again. Admittedly, the damaged teeth were pretty much on opposite sides of the gear, I don't think this would work if you had two or more teeth missing in a row. Winding on is now a bit more of a clunky experience, but it works.

Another side effect of reducing the stiffness is that the film will not load flat anymore; instead it bulges outward unless pressed down by the pressure plate of the back door. This isn't really a problem, as my photographs show no sign of focus issues.