Kiev 4: shutter nightmare

[Valvulo]

Hello all,

Recently I got a $20 Kiev 4A body "for parts", and I'm trying to refurbish its shutter, since all the rest looks good (maybe some helical lub is necessary, but okay) and I got some previous knowledge from repairing other cameras, including another Kiev 4.

The camera was poorly serviced by someone, and came to me badly jammed and with traces of a very innapropriate and sticky yellow oil (maybe for kitchen?) everywhere inside.

With the help of very useful Richard Haw's notes on prewar Contaxes (which I found here), I managed to remove both curtain rollers and clear the jam, resetting the shutter and being able to soak it in some naphtha and removing most of the sticky oil. Also, I installed new ribbons and got ready to go... But there's still something pretty odd in this shutter.

When I try to simulate the shutter firing and try to cock it again, the film advance button only travels half of its way, needing the fire button to be pressed again, in order to complete the turn. It's important to observe that I'm considering both upper curtain cogs positions, before and after the shutter being fired and that this problem happens in all the speeds, but not in B! I don't know if there is something still misaligned or jammed, sice when I try to install the curtain rollers again the problem seems to persist.

Anyone has an idea? Tips on how to reinstall the curtains again will be very useful too! 😉

Many thanks in advance.

 

[nhchen]

Sounds like maybe the shutter gears are still out of sync. I found the maizenberg repair guide to be quite useful, if I remember correctly he suggests you put the shutter curtains back in when it is set cocked at the 1/1000 speed, with the curtain slit at around 1-1.5mm. You should be able to find a copy online somewhere.
Nathan

 

[Valvulo]

Sounds like maybe the shutter gears are still out of sync. I found the maizenberg repair guide to be quite useful, if I remember correctly he suggests you put the shutter curtains back in when it is set cocked at the 1/1000 speed, with the curtain slit at around 1-1.5mm. You should be able to find a copy online somewhere.
Nathan

Thank you for the reply! 🙂

I managed to get a copy of Maizenberg's book, and studied its diagrams in the last few hours. Back to the working bench, I took the curtains off and observed that the problem seems to be in the winding mechanism gears sync. When not in B setting, the lower disk locks seems to catch the winding gear pin (items 9 and 10 on figure 319a from the book) in the wrong place making the winding button stop at half way, only being able to make a full turn after the shutter is pressed again.

I'm still trying to figure out how to solve this, preferably without the need to disassemble this mechanism completely...

 

[wolves3012]

I have very little experience of the insides of Kievs but I've found this site very useful: http://www3.telus.net/public/rpnchbck/ There are various pages on dismantling, repairing and re-assembly of the shutter and RF etc.

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

Hello all,

Recently I got a $20 Kiev 4A body "for parts", and I'm trying to refurbish its shutter, since all the rest looks good (maybe some helical lub is necessary, but okay) and I got some previous knowledge from repairing other cameras, including another Kiev 4.

The camera was poorly serviced by someone, and came to me badly jammed and with traces of a very innapropriate and sticky yellow oil (maybe for kitchen?) everywhere inside.

With the help of very useful Richard Haw's notes on prewar Contaxes (which I found here), I managed to remove both curtain rollers and clear the jam, resetting the shutter and being able to soak it in some naphtha and removing most of the sticky oil. Also, I installed new ribbons and got ready to go... But there's still something pretty odd in this shutter.

When I try to simulate the shutter firing and try to cock it again, the film advance button only travels half of its way, needing the fire button to be pressed again, in order to complete the turn. It's important to observe that I'm considering both upper curtain cogs positions, before and after the shutter being fired and that this problem happens in all the speeds, but not in B! I don't know if there is something still misaligned or jammed, sice when I try to install the curtain rollers again the problem seems to persist.

Anyone has an idea? Tips on how to reinstall the curtains again will be very useful too! 😉

Many thanks in advance.

Contaxes and Kievs are quite particular about the mechanism being clean and well-lubricated if they are overall going to run well. In particular, the springs are tensioned the least amount at the fastest shutter speed, because this has the smallest slit width, hence the second curtain is barely drawn past the end of the gate and there is minimal spring pre-load.

If you have only removed most of the sticky substance from the components, frankly I think you're wasting your time trying to re-assemble it yet. Perhaps the slow and medium speeds may run passably well, but I doubt you'll get anywhere close to accurate high speeds, until the mechanism is thoroughly cleaned of all contaminants.
Cheers,
Brett

 

[Valvulo]

Contaxes and Kievs are quite particular about the mechanism being clean and well-lubricated if they are overall going to run well. In particular, the springs are tensioned the least amount at the fastest shutter speed, because this has the smallest slit width, hence the second curtain is barely drawn past the end of the gate and there is minimal spring pre-load.

If you have only removed most of the sticky substance from the components, frankly I think you're wasting your time trying to re-assemble it yet. Perhaps the slow and medium speeds may run passably well, but I doubt you'll get anywhere close to accurate high speeds, until the mechanism is thoroughly cleaned of all contaminants.
Cheers,
Brett

Many thanks for the tip.

I removed the curtains again and washed the gears thoroughly with more naphtha, and the mechanism started to work properly. After that, I used some watch oil to lub it. Looks okay now! 🙂

I installed, aligned the curtains and tensioned the lower drum, but now there is some problem with the ribbons. Looks like they're making too much friction when rolled, against the curtains, and in its slots as well, preventing the shutter to cap. It's funny because I've been using the same ribbons for some years in other Kievs and had no problems at all. Maybe I cut it too long or left the drum stitches too bulged; I'm gonna check it later.