KoNickon
Nick Merritt
I had sitting in a box a humble Canon TLb that I'd put away some time ago, probably because the meter didn't work and it wasn't particularly "special" enough to warrant more attention. I remembered why it was there as soon as I put it up to my eye -- a large black squarish patch in the lower right portion of the viewfinder, probably some errant foam from the prism housing. Distracting, but outside the center microprism and so I can look past it. And, the meter seems working and accurate. (1 second, 1/2 and 1/8 don't work, but I don't use those, honestly.)
Looking around at various repair videos (all about the FTb), it appeared to be pretty easy to get the top cover off and to remove the prism to get at the offending blob. Unlike the full-featured FTb, there's no hotshoe, so no wires to worry about in removing the cover. I was worried about removing the shutter/film speed dial, but setting it to 1/500 and ASA 25 removes spring tension from the settings, according to the online videos, and sure enough, no problems there.
I figured that removing the film advance lever would be straightforward, and indeed the videos I saw indicated you just needed to remove the cover with a spanner wrench and the rest would be easy. One reply to one of the videos said that the FTb is covered in some detail in Tomosy's camera repair book. I have that book and read the relevant pages, but he was talking about there being set screws under the cover that had to be loosened in order to remove the lefthand-threaded locknut (?!). Surely he was wrong -- and anyway, I've found he kind of glosses over things for an amateur like me. But no, he was right -- there they were, and I couldn't budge them for love nor money. Removing the cover was more difficult than it should have been, because someone had applied contact cement to it in reinstalling it, which of course got on the set screw heads too. The screw heads looked pretty bad; I wonder whether whoever was in there might have mangled them.
So, defeated, I closed everything back up. I may try some acetone to see if that will remove any remaining contact cement, but if the screw heads are trashed, there's not much to be done. I had the dark thought of getting a sturdier spanner wrench and just forcing the locknut loose -- but that would be wrong....
I have an essentially functional camera. There's no way sending this to a professional would be worth it (and I'd hate to impose this problem on anyone -- don't know what they could do anyway). But, so close yet so far.
Thanks for reading.
Looking around at various repair videos (all about the FTb), it appeared to be pretty easy to get the top cover off and to remove the prism to get at the offending blob. Unlike the full-featured FTb, there's no hotshoe, so no wires to worry about in removing the cover. I was worried about removing the shutter/film speed dial, but setting it to 1/500 and ASA 25 removes spring tension from the settings, according to the online videos, and sure enough, no problems there.
I figured that removing the film advance lever would be straightforward, and indeed the videos I saw indicated you just needed to remove the cover with a spanner wrench and the rest would be easy. One reply to one of the videos said that the FTb is covered in some detail in Tomosy's camera repair book. I have that book and read the relevant pages, but he was talking about there being set screws under the cover that had to be loosened in order to remove the lefthand-threaded locknut (?!). Surely he was wrong -- and anyway, I've found he kind of glosses over things for an amateur like me. But no, he was right -- there they were, and I couldn't budge them for love nor money. Removing the cover was more difficult than it should have been, because someone had applied contact cement to it in reinstalling it, which of course got on the set screw heads too. The screw heads looked pretty bad; I wonder whether whoever was in there might have mangled them.
So, defeated, I closed everything back up. I may try some acetone to see if that will remove any remaining contact cement, but if the screw heads are trashed, there's not much to be done. I had the dark thought of getting a sturdier spanner wrench and just forcing the locknut loose -- but that would be wrong....
I have an essentially functional camera. There's no way sending this to a professional would be worth it (and I'd hate to impose this problem on anyone -- don't know what they could do anyway). But, so close yet so far.
Thanks for reading.
