The Fabulous Casca II

Dez

Dez

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I have recently received one of these rare and interesting cameras. It appears to be complete and restorable to top condition, but I lack some crucial information to do so.

https://cameraquest.com/casca.htm

The camera will wind and fire, but it is obviously desperately in need of a CLA, in that all the shutter speeds are the same. The shutter mechanism is not under the easily-removable top plate, but buried right in the middle of the camera. The construction appears to be something like an old Contax, in that multiple castings can be separated to access the internal bits, but this is a very well-machined camera, and it is not at all obvious where the partings are. There are mysterious screwheads everywhere, and holes in castings leading to yet more screwheads.:bang:

The story is that this camera ceased production due to patent infringement issues with Leitz, but so far I have not been able to find any mechanism in this camera that bears the slightest resemblance to any Leica.

This will probably be reasonably straightforward to service once I can get to the mechanism, but so far it has defeated me. Does anyone have any service information on this very rare and interesting camera?



Here's a picture of my little gem. I spent some time today doing a cleanup and a bit of exploratory surgery. The shutter is working now, but I am not happy with the accuracy of the speeds, and I still haven't got the B setting to work at all. I need to figure out how to get into the heart of the shutter mechanism.

Cheers,
Dez
 
I almost bought one of these last year, but the price went too high for my budget.

As for the Leica litigation rumors, companies will patent something they have no intention of making, but want ownership of the design for licencing purposes. They also might patent something they have long-term plans for producing, so maybe Leica had a patent on the bright-line frames with the idea of using it in their next line of cameras that would have to wait until the company was under better financial footing before starting up another assembly line. Investors were probably not in a good place to bankroll the M series for many years after the war. And seeing as it was such a departure from the Barnack designs, they were probably a bit skittish, too.

PF
 
IT'S ALIVE!!

Seems I was wildly optimistic about how close to working the Casca was: there were MANY things wrong, and of course I made things far worse poking around attempting to understand the mechanism. There are several points I still don't understand, but I was able to work around these areas. It turns out that both curtains were releasing simultaneously at all high speeds, and the RF was miles off and inconsistent. I have now beaten it into working condition, but this is without a doubt the most service-unfriendly camera I have seen.

There were no "partings" between castings: it is all one ridiculously-complicated machined lump, with all the parts attached to it. It appears that it is necessary to detach the shutter tapes and pull the entire shutter assembly, including the leading curtain and tapes for the trailing curtain upward out of the body shell for complete access. I managed to do my servicing without this drastic approach, but it was very frustrating. The mechanism is very different from that of a Barnack, and everything is counter-intuitive. Assembly of this camera in the factory was possibly done using the famous "disappearing elves" method.

Adjusting the rangefinder horizontal and vertical alignment is a nightmare: the adjustments are very coarse, and interact strongly. Removing the three screws from the top of the round casting hiding the shutter planetary gears (yes!) is a big mistake which sadly I made, allowing all the various parts of the mechanism to get out of sync. Getting multiple gears re-engaged correctly was definitely the opposite of fun.





If anyone has a Casca, and is foolhardy enough to dig into it for servicing, please contact me, and I will send along some pictures and some very hard-won pointers. Servicing information for these cameras is completely unobtainable, as far as I could see.

So now I'll have to see if I can actually take any pictures with it, handling it oh-so-carefully.

Cheers,
Dez
 
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