PistonPinHmm… #FilmPhotography really isn't cheap. 🤔
If I bought a medium format camera*, I could burn all those monies a lot quicker – efficiency! 🤪
* (Which I'm not going to do.)
This camera was given to me; I didn't buy it. This is something totally different! 😅
I gave the ground glass, Fresnel lens, and mirror a quick initial cleaning. Considering that the viewing lens hasn't been cleaned yet, that's already a pretty decent interim result, imho. 🙂
Today, I continued with the #YashicaMatLM. The slower speeds were very sticky.
So I took the lens plate and another cover off, and disassembled the shutter as far as necessary to be able to remove the speed governor.
I then put it in isopropanol, which already helped. A bath in the (new) ultrasonic cleaner and fresh lubricant, and I'm quite confident that it will be as good as new.
The self-timer thankfully (and to my surprise) worked quite alright.
Ultrasonic bath and lubrication are done. And, well, that doesn't look too bad, imho.
All speeds are working reliably again now. (But I will do a check for accuracy.) 🔊
After servicing the film winding mechanism on the #YashicaMatLM today, the whole camera now operates smoothly again. Now all that's left to do is to properly clean the lenses and make it look good again. 🙂
Finally back at the #YashicaMatLM.
I cleaned the lenses, and they seem to be in pretty good shape. Only the rear element of the taking lens looks a little bit like there might be some lens separation starting to happen.
It seems to be a thing with #Yashica lenses and me. 😄 (https://mastodon.online/@PistonPin/115078127364587066)
Janne Moren@PistonPin
I've got a Yashica Mat, and I used it for several years. But it seems like the winder intermittently fails, as if a gear has stripped teeth or something like that. I believe the gears are plastic so it seems not unlikely.
Advice? I'm a bit afraid of taking it apart then not being able to reassemble it. Is it doable? And I don't know where to search for replacement bits?
@jannem From what I've seen, the LM is pretty much just a 'regular' Yashica Mat with a light meter attachment. If this is the case, then all the gears are metal. Of course, it is possible that someone stripped some teeth of a metal gear, but I don't think this is very likely; they looked quite solid to me. Perhaps a spring broke (but that would also surprise me) or something simply came loose?
But I'm certainly no expert when it comes to mechanical cameras or the Yashica Mat in particular.
@PistonPin
Thanks! That should give me some confidence to give it a try.
The model is the 124g which was, I think, a lower cost model and so it used plastic for some part of the mechanism AFAIK.
@jannem I'm just learning by doing.
I took detail photos before and after removing a part. With this approach, I've been able to reassemble everything (so far). 🙃
A generally useful resource:
https://yashicatlr.com/BodiesTrim.html
This video gives a pretty good overview of the disassembly and reassembly of the winding/cocking mechanism. Except for the small selector mechanism that switches between 12 and 24 exposures on the Yashica Mat 124, the mechanism seems to be the same: