stuck advance/curtains on M2?

[Nate Butler]

Hi all,

I've run into some trouble with my recently-acquired M2. For some reason, the film advance is stuck and the curtains are fully open. Has anyone encountered this before? I'm thinking that I may have managed to partially cock the shutter when I finished my last roll of film (I started to advance to the 25th frame on a 24-exposure roll). Any advice? I'll be bringing the camera to my local repair guy this weekend, but I'd like to be sure I didn't miss anything obvious. Thanks!

Nate

 

[kully]

My M3 got a stuck advance a week or so ago.

I would not force anything. The general consensus on my problem was a strip of material which can come loose and jam it all up. So not too expensive a fix.

Please keep us informed - I for one would be interested in finding out what it was.

 

[agianelo]

My M2 is having the same problem. My last two rolls only had 18 & 20 frames before I had to rewind. For some reason the curtain hangs up and opening up the back and freeing the curtain sets loose the film advance. I too would be interested if someone knows what may be wrong. Our local camera repair shop doesn't seem to be any help.

Angelo

 

[splitimageview]

agianelo, I've seen that problem with some M3s, where the rewind knob is messed up. There is a little 4 prong device in the rewind knob that causes binding. That might be the problem with your M2.

 

[Nate Butler]

Thanks, everyone, for the input. I decided that before my curiousity got the better of me and I tried doing something that I would probably regret (ie, pick up a screwdriver), I would contact Youxin Ye to see if he had any ideas. My local shop was getting twitchy and suggesting that it would involve rebuilding the camera. Youxin didn't seem too fazed by the jam, and as I wanted to have it CLA'ed anyway I boxed it up and sent it to him this afternoon. I will keep you updated on the progress. Thanks again!

Nate

 

[Nate Butler]

...so THAT'S what happened...

...so THAT'S what happened...

Youxin gave me an update on what happened. One of the curtains came off! Apparently, the previous owner's repair person was a bit overzealous with some oil, which ended up on the curtain, dried and hardened, and when pressure was applied it tore off. Here's some of his response:
"I put the old curtain into the package, you will see, the oily part is mostly in the middle area, a big stain there and made curtain hardened. You can see why it was separated from the metal bar. The key is the edge, M curtain edge is metal pressed in. If the curtain material gets deterioation, it may separate from the metal bar, and we have to replace the curtain.
The short curtain (the one you see after wind the camera) also appears has a weak edge (cloth to the metal bar joint, compare to a perfect curtain, which you may check it against the new curtain I just put in). But I closely inspected it and appears good, at least for quite a while.
A CLA'd camera does not require a lot force on curtains, if the curtain edge has no sign of separation, it should work well. Only if a camera is dried out, winding becomes stiff, sometimes it will cause the curtain cloth separate from the metal bar, even if the curtain is a perfect one. A proper CLA should last at least 10 years."


Looking on the bright side, I'll have a working and properly adjusted camera back in my paws in the next couple of days, and I had some wonderful service from Youxin Ye.