friedaweed said:
This is the one master.
Beirette VSN. It has a 2.8 Meritar lens in it. 3 rings on the lens. Aperture, shutter speed and fixed distance focus.
Shutter is between the lens elements and something is loose and rattling in there
Can't find my precision screwdriver kit atm so I'll prob strip it down tomorrow. Any tips on what not to touch, things to look out for?
Thanks dude
Frieda
Good, Meritars are usually triplets, which means 2 elements in front, one behind the shutter. You'll want to work with the aperture wide open. Oh, and touch
NOWT with your bare fingers, only with tools, swabs or if you're wearing surgical or cotton gloves.
I have this little procedure I follow that stands me in very good stead. It basically consists of taking a picture (much easier with the advent of digital cameras, believe me!) of every part you unfasten/remove
in situ, so you know where it goes back.
As your focus is fixed you don't have any worries about accidently altering the focal length while fiddling with the lens elements, which is a bonus.
I usually start with removing the rear element. You'll probably notice that the retaining ring has two slits in it, opposite each other. You're supposed to use a lens wrench (about £20 minimum from micro-tools or similar) but I've had success using a double thickness of plastic loyalty card cut to size. removing the rear element will give you access to the rear of the shutter blades. You may be able to ascertain what's causing the problem from here.
IF a shutter blade is kinked then you're probably buggered, as the shutter would have to have been fairly borkled already for it to jam hard enough to kink a blade, but it may be that lubricant from the escapement of the shutter has migrated to the shutter blades, and this can be ascertained by gently swabbing the blades either with surgical swabs or with the paper stemmed cotton buds with naptha (the naptha will dissolve the plastic on plastic-stemmed cotton buds), attempting to operate the shutter as you do so. If this doesn't free up the shutter you're going to have to take the front lens cells out and do the same with the front of the shutter blades. The 2 front lens elements may be linked together as a single unit which makes removing/replacing them easier, but even if they're not they should come out easily once you remove any retaining ring and/or grub screws.
If none of this works you may have to remove the shutter cover plate (very carefully, over a tray to catch any pinging springy bits is my recommendation) and work out whether the escapement is either jammed (decades of wear and tear can rioughen surfaces so that they bind, solution is to remove and "polish" them smooth again) or crudded up with dried/gummed lubricant (in which case you may have to strip down the lens assembly until all you have is the shutter, and then soak/flush it with naptha until it frees up.
If you have to do the naptha thing, then when you relubricate bear in mid that you want literally a pin-end of watch & clock oil at the lubrication point (usually the main pivot in the mechanism). Any more than that and it'll migrate again.
Oh, and give the lens elements a clean with Kodak cleaning fluid and tissues while you're about it!!
