IIIF Film Advance - Not!

Leigh Youdale

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I was about to sell one of my IIIf's - a Black Dial model with the Elmar 3.5/50 collapsible. Then I found for the second time in succession that the film had not advanced through the camera as I shot frames. Two films blown, unfortunately. Can't sell it like that!
The first time I put it down to carelessness in preparing the leader and inserting it into the takeup spool, but the second time I was quite particular about getting it right. On both occasions the film seemed to advance for the first 2-3 frames but then apparently got stuck. On rewinding, by feel alone it was clear that the leader had not come out of the clip on the takeup spool - there was definite tension and release when the end of the leader came clear, but that happened after about 2 turns of the rewind knob.
It's looking like there is slippage somewhere between the film advance winder and the takeup spool - maybe a friction drive of some kind ????
I don't know the internal workings of these cameras and though someone else might have once had this problem or know what the cause might be.
 
Doh!

Doh!

Well don't keep us in suspense! 😛

It's simple really, and makes me look simple too. I developed the "dud" film this afternoon and found 20 good images on it. I was expecting none.
Thinking back, I had been using four different 35mm cameras concurrently (2x IIIf and 2x Bessa). I went to a friends 2-day wedding a week ago and used three of them, and also rewound and swapped film cartridges between them. I obviously lost track of what I was doing and had put a part-exposed film into one of the Leicas but NOT wound on and NOT reset the film counter.
When I picked the camera up, forgetting what I'd done, it looked like the film was almost finished and I decided to unload and process it. That's when on rewinding the film came clear of the takeup spool almost immediately and panicked me into thinking the film advance had played up. I had that happen once before on the camera when I was not careful to check that the sprocket teeth and sprocket holes were lined up together and the film properly tensioned before I put the base plate on. result was the teeth punched through the perforations and didn't advance the film at all. I thought the same thing must have happened again.
 
It doesn't make you a fool, it just makes you human. I once put a roll through a Spotmatic and didn't realise until frame 40 that something wasn't quite right - sent it off anyway (dilemma: reload and risk double-exposures?) and got (no surprise) 36 nicely blank slides and a note to the effect that my camera might be faulty. Er, no - I was faulty by not checking the rewind knob! I also put a roll through a Kiev recently and wondered why things went a bit tight at frame 26 - fetched it out in the dark and rewound it by hand, only to find I'd loaded a 24-exposure roll - DOH! I doubt there's anyone on here with the neck to say they've not done something similar!
 
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