Ebony SVTi

[brian reed]

Hey everyone,

I purchased a used Ebony 4x5 SVTi a few months ago, and the camera is in excellant condition, and I dearly love it except I have one problem. The rear shift is very hard to slide left and right, I have to hold the camera on the side I'm shifting to to keep from pushing over the camera. My question is how much force should be necessary to shift the rear on a Ebony. I've sprayed some WD-40 on the track and seems to move better , but it still is very hard to move. Everything else on the camera works great as I expected an Ebony to work and nothing appears to be bent or out of alignment.
This isn't a real big problem for me since I don't use the rear shift much, but I would like it to be right.

take care
BR

[Eric Leppanen]

Brian,

The rear shift mechanism should move easily and smoothly (I believe my SV45U2 shares the same mechanism with the SVTi), so it sounds to me like some grit has gotten lodged between the metal surfaces. I'd suggest emailing Ian Wilson of Ebony directly to get his suggestions as to how to proceed. He can be contacted per the email address given on the Ebony website (www.ebonycamera.com); the email name listed is Hiromi's but Ian is the person who will actually respond.

[Scott Fleming]

WD40 is not a lubricant. It's to displace water from metal surfaces. WD stands for water displacement. It 'seems' to lubricate when you first apply it but actually when it dries it forms a sticky coating. You probably need to thoroughly clean off the WD40 you have applied and perhaps use a true lubricant but as above I'd consult Ebony.

[Richard Årlin]

Just needs to be used a few times, it will be smoother and smoother as time goes by. I have a SV45TE and the problem fixed itself really.

Cheers, Richard

[David R Munson]

I'll second the suggestion to use an actual lubricant instead of WD40. That said, be careful - some types of lubricant can screw up wood. My suggestion would be to find a lubricant called White Lightning. It is sort of a suspended wax in solution - when it dries it leaves a dryish layer of wax lubricant. It's most commonly used for bicycle chains (can be found at any good bike shop), but it has a lot of uses. I recently used it to lubricate the rails inside an inkjet printer because the print head was catching (it isn't any more).