During an act of unspeakable stupidity on my part, I managed to accidentally break a couple of shutter blades of an old Multi Speed Shutter. Looks like the original blades were made of thin (and rather brittle) plastic (vulcanite?). Anyone having some insight were to find a similar suitable material (it's about twice the thickness of regular writing paper)? Any hints/advice how to best attempt the repair?
I've got some aperture blades that I've been thinking of replacing and they're of the same vulcanite rubber material,
short of finding the the formula for vulcanite and making sheets of it myself, the best I've found as a replacement
is sheet styrene in terms of thickness, I'm not sure how well styrene will perform as shutter blades.
I've managed to replace a number of shutter blades (acme, koilos shutters come to mind; acme also uses vulcanite i believe) using sheet spring steel (mc master Carr) cut to shape. The thin steel can be obtained in the correct thickness, and is stiff and durable enough to withstand the shutter action. The only tricky bit is drilling holes and attaching pins (I used epoxy, which works well if everything is properly cleaned) if needed.
Cheers
Tim
You might contact Carol Miller at Flutot's. Apparently she has considerable old salvage shutters and might have the needed parts.
"One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude." Carl Sandburg
The only problem I see you could run into Ben is the Multi Speed shutter a fairly uncommon shutter( didn't seem to sell tones of em back then) and not sure any spare parts will be laying around at any repair shops like Ilex, Wollensak, B&L shutters, Compound, Compur, Copal and so on. That said it can't hurt to chuck Carol Miller (Fultons), Frank Marshman (Camera Wiz or any other quality repair person.
If the parts aren't available for the Multi Speed, you or the repair person you chose could try manufacturing replacement blades from sheet spring steel like Tim suggested.
The other issue with multi speeds is that they don't necessarily have interchangeable parts! I have 2 of these, identical size , close ser #s, and very similar outward appearance. One I got with a lens, but missing most of the guts. The other was without lens and heavily corroded on the aluminum casing. Of course, I tried to take the guts from the corroded one and use them to repair the one with the lens. Didn't work. Lots of subtle differences in the parts and most won't fit. Also, the lens cells won't swap into the other shutter either (due to frozen in lens adapter inserts). So, I've got a working shutter with no lens and the other which essentially functions as barrel lens. Also, FYI, the multi speed is a tricky shutter to get working properly under the best of conditions
Some large shutters used pressed paper for shutter leaves.
If they were coated, a person could mistake them for plastic.
Thanks everyone. I'll send Carol a message. What happened to my shutter was that a few blades somehow got unaligned and literally smashed each other to pieces. I'll try the spring steel route; but am considering tinkering with impregnated paper (DIY). Probably get some of that epoxy like stuff that's used to soak into rotten wood and see if it works with paper.
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