Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 522/24 (35mm folder)

[davhill]

I know—we’re in the 120 folder forum, but this is the closest match. The Ikonta 522/24 is closely akin to several other 120-size Zeiss folders. So Phoooey. Here I am.

The 522/24 is a 35mm zone focus folder with PRONTO shutter and a double-exposure prevention feature that doesn’t enable the shutter to fire until the film has rolled a sufficient length past the sprocket cogs. When testing, you just spin the cogs in the film chamber with a thumb until the shutter release is enabled.

My 522/24 is pretty clean, but I have the lenses out of it, so thought it worthwhile to give it a cleaning. (Oh foolish thought) I flushed the shutter with lighter fluid yesterday, and quite /possibly/ not waiting long enough to dry thoroughly, I fired the shutter .. with wet diaphragm blades it sloooowly opened and shut .. And I think I’ve, er, stressed something.

And now—The shutter cocks, but the film-winding-cog-interlock-double-exposure-safety no longer enables the shutter release. What have I done and where do I go from here? And how do you get the shutter dismounted anyways?

Thanks
Dave

 

[sepiareverb]

Calling Dan Daniel.

 

[Dan Daniel]

Darn it, Bob, I thought we agreed to carrier pigeons!

Dave, I don't know much about this camera model. Looking online, hard to tell what is going on. Zeiss had a habit of taking 'unusual' pathways to solve mechnical issues. I guess it was so busy jumping through hoops to avoid patent conflicts that it led to some strange answers.

Usually a shutter like that would have a retaining ring on the back of the lens panel. The double exposure interlock must be a bit tricky since it looks as if the shutter release is on the lens board, not the body? I would trace back how the wind system is locking the shutter release. Maybe it got knocked around in handling. Maybe it is even pretty exposed on the side? Well, sorry that I can't give you much help. Have you loked over Hans Kerensky's flickr to see if he touches it? He seems to have an album on most every interesting camera made!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29504544@N08/albums

And looks as if the Contina is a similar mechanism- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yJCitG70gQ

 

[davhill]

Darn it, Bob, I thought we agreed to carrier pigeons!

Dave, I don't know much about this camera model. Looking online, hard to tell what is going on. Zeiss had a habit of taking 'unusual' pathways to solve mechnical issues. I guess it was so busy jumping through hoops to avoid patent conflicts that it led to some strange answers.

Usually a shutter like that would have a retaining ring on the back of the lens panel. The double exposure interlock must be a bit tricky since it looks as if the shutter release is on the lens board, not the body? I would trace back how the wind system is locking the shutter release. Maybe it got knocked around in handling. Maybe it is even pretty exposed on the side? Well, sorry that I can't give you much help. Have you loked over Hans Kerensky's flickr to see if he touches it? He seems to have an album on most every interesting camera made!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29504544@N08/albums

And looks as if the Contina is a similar mechanism- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yJCitG70gQ

Hi Dan, and thanks for your input -- I'm also finding little help on this camera on the internet but you've given me some more avenues to explore. As for Bob -- I can't say much except to thank him for wrangling you in on this.

So. Hans doesn't touch it. You're quite right .. this is an earlier edition of the Contina (mine looks like the middle camera in that YouTube threesome, but with the lesser Novar lens; the interlock is identical.) I find several other sites/films which review how to /operate/ it but nothing on repair. Yes, the shutter release is on the shutter itself, not the body. That interlock mechanism is very much hidden in the base, not exposed at all. Yes, there's a retaining ring on the rear of the shutter, with four nicks/slots for purchase, but naturally its absurdly hard to reach and my standard lens wrench doesn't quite have proper clearance. I'm inclined to leave the shutter in place and take the bottom off the camera, to review the interlock before disturbing the connection between the interlock & shutter.

Nothing to do but take it apart to find what I find :-| which of course means that something is bound to fall out of place and I'll never get it together again .. but .. I'm actually feeling ok with this: I got the camera for a song because the seller didn't know about the interlock. It worked for awhile. Heck, it worked /fine/ immediately before I 'cleaned' it.

Thank you both. Tally ho.
Dave

 

[sepiareverb]

Darn it, Bob, I thought we agreed to carrier pigeons!

Yesterday’s snow was too much for them. They flew south not west...

 

[hanskerensky]

You might have a look at the rotational position of the shutter. Maybe it rotated a little and the stroke of the release lever is now too short to reset the double exposure prevention mechanism.

 

[davhill]

You might have a look at the rotational position of the shutter. Maybe it rotated a little and the stroke of the release lever is now too short to reset the double exposure prevention mechanism.

A good point — and yet, the shutter is *very* solidly fixed. No rotation occurred.

BUT I’m making progress (oh fool that I am). Part of the interlock is tied to the *frame counter*, and I hadn’t reset THAT. (Thank you, Zeiss engineers, for thinking of everything). So ok, the interlock works.

And now the shutter release begins it’s movement, but the blades don’t release. This makes things *so* much simpler 🙂) or at least the issue is constrained to the leaf-shutter mechanism and not the camera’s quirks.

Does anyone know of a PRONTO shutter guide/manual? This is a PRONTO not PRONTOR.

 

[davhill]

You might have a look at the rotational position of the shutter. Maybe it rotated a little and the stroke of the release lever is now too short to reset the double exposure prevention mechanism.

Good lord, Hans, you’ve got a wealth of data on flickr, don’t you?!

Ok, so it’s not just a Pronto shutter. It’s a particular little Pronto...

 

[davhill]

Allright then, I dismounted the shutter. Easy, really. The retaining ring is captive, and the shutter-to-interlock is simple—just a prong from the body which moves, or doesn’t move. Tomosy has a brief discussion of a closely similar Pronto in a Wirgin, with a warning: “again, watch out for the springs.” Oh THATS helpful. It’s gonna explode when I take the halves apart, won’t it?

 

[Dan Daniel]

Can you tell if the lack of shutter actuation is from a mechanical issue outside of the shutter, or is it in the shutter itself? Usually on leaf shutters you can find the true shutter release in the shutter body itself. Then the camera maker makes an interface mechanism of some sort that is mainly external to the shutter block. See if you can isolate which system has the problem before ripping either one apart. Especially with Zeiss- so little documentation out there to recover from any mistakes.

I've taken a pair of needle nose pliers and ground the tips to make a spanner wrench for those old folders and such with almost no room inside the throat to get to the ring. You need to be careful to keep the tips off the lens!

 

[johnnyrod]

The interlock (double exposure prevention) is in the base of the camera. Once you have the shutter off you can cock and fire it in the normal way, the camera body release uses a lever that blocks the shutter's release lever so you can't do as you would normally on a 120 folder and just fire it yourself from the shutter's lever. I'm not familiar with the goings-on in there but they can be tricky. It's the same as used for the folding Contina (uncoupled RF, like a small Mess Ikonta) and Contessa, I think - you may have more luck searching for those.
FWIW there are 11 variants of the Ikonta 35 I think, according to Hans de Groot!

 

[davhill]

Can you tell if the lack of shutter actuation is from a mechanical issue outside of the shutter, or is it in the shutter itself? Usually on leaf shutters you can find the true shutter release in the shutter body itself. Then the camera maker makes an interface mechanism of some sort that is mainly external to the shutter block. See if you can isolate which system has the problem before ripping either one apart. Especially with Zeiss- so little documentation out there to recover from any mistakes.

I've taken a pair of needle nose pliers and ground the tips to make a spanner wrench for those old folders and such with almost no room inside the throat to get to the ring. You need to be careful to keep the tips off the lens!

The issue is most definitely /inside/ the shutter mechanism. In this model, cock and fire are separate actions. The cocking lever is on the shutter itself, and the "outside" actuator is restrained by the double-exposure interlock (until it frees up) and bears on the actual shutter actuator. Actuating the shutter moves some levers and releases the first tiny 'click', but the shutter blades don't move.

I have the shutter out now .. My bent-tip spanner has just enough clearance to loosen the ring, and then I could wind it off with a single tip. (Lenses, front and back, are already out, so no worries there.) There's four screws in the back (exposed when the aperture is at approx 2.8) though I'm concerned about what might fly free if I separate the halves. (As I noted, Tomosy says "watch out for the springs")

Dave

 

[davhill]

FWIW there are 11 variants of the Ikonta 35 I think, according to Hans de Groot!

<grin> Yea, I'm staggering through a confusing field. This one (522/24) is the zone focus version (Ikonta 35, later renamed as Contina?), and has the Pronto shutter with 3-element Novar-Anastigmat 45mm/3.5 lens. The camera is (was) in perfectly lovely condition ...

 

[davhill]

The issue is most definitely /inside/ the shutter mechanism. In this model, cock and fire are separate actions. The cocking lever is on the shutter itself, and the "outside" actuator is restrained by the double-exposure interlock (until it frees up) and bears on the actual shutter actuator. Actuating the shutter moves some levers and releases the first tiny 'click', but the shutter blades don't move.
Dave

Oh dear god, save me from incomplete attempts. First I'd like to thank you gentlemen for advice and support. Secondly to apologize for running you all down a rabbit hole. And third I'd like to say "it's all right after all". I think.

It occurred to me that maybe I'd not flooded it sufficiently with cleaner, and that some of the dissolved debris from the workings was on the shutter blades. So this time I got a tiny bowl and just soaked the heck out of it with lighter fluid... And as soon as it was wet, kerzip, she went off. So I squirted and soaked it and exercised it while wet, and continued cycling it as I dried it out, under forced warm air and with dabbings of paper tissue .. And I'll leave it overnight now and continue with the same tomorrow. But I'm on track, I believe.

 

[hanskerensky]

Hope you succeed !
Flooding with lighter fluid is not a great idea as indeed the lubricants/dirt moves to other parts in the shutter as you found out for yourself.

When a leaf shutter is really dirty I always disassemble and clean it.

 

[johnnyrod]

Good luck! As Hans rightly says, it can be fraught. I also prefer to split the shutter, remove the shutter leaves, then submerge the main shutter assembly - I also take out the escapement and self timer if possible. The amount of dirt in these old things can be impressive, and if it is just driven into the shutter ring or wherever, it's not going to help. I tend not to disassemble the aperture as it's a pig of a job and, provided you swab it well enough, there is little oil left to migrate around.
In terms of lubrication, I really only lube the escapement and self timer with a little watch oil, sometimes after removing from the solvent bath but before it's entirely dry. Leave it to dry, wipe all over to remove any oil. A little graphite possibly in the shutter ring, but I'm not sure it's actually helped when I have. A bit of lithium grease for ones where the main lever is of the type that runs right around the shutter body, I think yours may be one of those, my Contessa was.

 

[oftheherd]

Good luck! As Hans rightly says, it can be fraught. I also prefer to split the shutter, remove the shutter leaves, then submerge the main shutter assembly - I also take out the escapement and self timer if possible. The amount of dirt in these old things can be impressive, and if it is just driven into the shutter ring or wherever, it's not going to help. I tend not to disassemble the aperture as it's a pig of a job and, provided you swab it well enough, there is little oil left to migrate around.
In terms of lubrication, I really only lube the escapement and self timer with a little watch oil, sometimes after removing from the solvent bath but before it's entirely dry. Leave it to dry, wipe all over to remove any oil. A little graphite possibly in the shutter ring, but I'm not sure it's actually helped when I have. A bit of lithium grease for ones where the main lever is of the type that runs right around the shutter body, I think yours may be one of those, my Contessa was.

Any aperture mechanism can be for sure. But be careful if the aperture ring is too hard to move. Then you will have to clean it someway. Sometimes lighter fluid will do it, sometimes you need to carefully pull them off. Remember which one goes where, be gentle with them, and remember which way is up. Take digital photos of each step.

The reason I mention the aperture ring is that if things are too stiff and you continue to force the ring, you may dislodge the pin(s) for the blades. I have no idea how to get them back in. Don't ask how I know.

 

[davhill]

Thanks. "Fraught", "How does this work?" and "Don't ask me how I know." are my bywords, but I'll still avoid dismounting aperture blades if I can. The ring and diaphragm are moving smoothly, no issue there at least. Indeed, I thought this was pretty clean until I cleaned it and moved what little dirt was there from harmless places to unfortunate places :/

Today is better than yesterday, but it's still hanging open, needing a bare touch on the cock lever to bump it closed. Seems like it's hanging in the part that controls shutter speed (is that the escapement?) Another wash cycle tonight, I think, before I take the plunge of opening it up.

I spoke to jay Cohn (Specialty Photographic Repair), whose name I gleaned from this forum, and who strikes me as someone very much worth having in reserve. He did seem appalled that I had this apart as much as I do, and practically begged me to just pack it up and ship it to him before i split the shutter and ruint everything. He has a point. And if I had a hundred burning in my pocket I'd do that. But I don't, so I'm thinking fraughtful thoughts about a screwdriver and those 4 screws in the back...

 

[farlymac]

Once you've taken a shutter down to the level you have it now, cleaning the escapement outside of the shutter body makes better sense. That way you can run it back and forth to dislodge any debris that may have migrated there. And it also allows you to work the shutter blades back and forth while cleaning them. If there is a delay timer included it's a good idea to take that out for cleaning also.

Flood cleaning with lighter fluid needs to be done more than once to really get at all the places the lubricants tend to collect. I know my good friend and mentor Hans doesn't like the practice, but it's done alright for me, as I haven't had to completely tear down a shutter or aperture except on an SLR lens, but that's a different story. They are also easier to work on.

PF

 

[davhill]

A lengthy Immersion in lighter fluid this time, face down, with swishing and wishing. An improvement again but not yet ideal.

I wonder if an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner would be a useful tool here?? (I think there may be one stashed away in the cellar, in boxes of treasures/junk inherited from mother-in-law. Hmmm.

I shall resume this quest after a weekend hiatus. I do appreciate all the input and support for a rank amateur. Thank you Dave.