Hi
Can anyone help with this please, the focusing is no longer smooth, I guess it needs a good clean and relubricating and to do a thorough job I need to remove the track, I have had agood look at it and can't find out how to remove it, tried Google, no luck
Thanks.
Until you are lucky enough to get instructions, you might just to what I do.
Leave the lens board inside the camera body. Put the rail extension to it's maximum length. Drop the bed so it tilts forward if you can. It is very long and makes access easy. Swab the rails generously with isopropyl alcohol. Exercise focus and rails. Blow clean. Repeat. No lube is required.
...and what Bob Salomon said!
To do this remove any cam before you drop the bed to prevent bending it!Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net
Once you get it clean as above, go to a hardware store and get a tube of silicone grease, and apply a tiny amount where the track slides, roll the focus track back and forth several times, then wipe off excess with a q tip... Just leave enough on that you can barely feel the grease film...
If it is still binding, there still might be dried grease, or a little fuzz ball that worked it's way onto the slide... Repeat above steps...
If still sticky and you get track apart, rub slides with toothpaste, as this is very slightly abrasive, and the fluoride will prevent oxidation, then clean very well and repeat above steps...
Steve K
Before you do that contact Linhof in Munich and ask them what to use!!!
Hi
Thanks for all your advice, I have managed to retract the focus rack sufficiently to access the drive cogs, all cleaned and lightly lubricated with Moby grease, focusing is now really smooth.
Thanks again
Please, get the oil out of your camera, for our own sake. A clean Linhof is so smooth that you don't have to oil it.
I aquired a Technika V that was already oiled to make focusing smooth. The camera was quite "rocked", heavy used, as we say here in Germany. Leatherette was taken off, there were adhesive stickers everywhere ("G-Shock"). Range finder was taken off to save some weight. A shame, in my opinion, although I am not against pimping cameras. I felt I had to restore it. Now it's not 100% Linhof-original, but it works and its quite pleasant to look at.
Appearently the grease that the man, who sold me the camera, proudly distributed (appearently some kind of teflon-oil mixture) evaporated when the sun shined on the metal body and the black bellows of this Technika. The sun heated the whole apparatus, the oil steamed out everywhere.
There was a lot of microfine oil on the surface of the bellows. The bellows went sticky, tacky, adhesive, lost some parts of material when folding it out. The oil then intruded into the bellows, causing holes.
Technika bellows are very delicate because to get a high extension they have to be long what causes problems when putting them back into the body, which is the reasen for their delicate thinness ...
The oil started to stink like the motor compartment of a diesel locomotive. I had to disassemble the whole camera to get it out, change the bellows, remove the stinking stickers and the greasy parts of the remaining leatherette. Imagine the smell under the focusing cloth, in the warming sun of a 30°C afternoon ... After heavy cleaning, the camera didn't stop to stink. But it's tolerable, some kind of of "steam punk" comes into mind.
I was able to mount the new bellows, a chinese one, ecubuyonline, which is certainly one or to folds to long - so i cutted them of at the frontside, and then it worked, it's light tight and all fits into the housing. I don't buy Technika bellows for 200$ when I get one from China for 100$. The camera itself was 300$. A quite silly purchase, I behaved like a moron, only to get one of these highly appraised Technika V's. Now I am healed. Somebody here who wants it?
When disassembling, e.g. to change a rotten bellows, you have to readjust the door opening (focusing bed) and the adjustable transport reception in the camera box. You will have to adjust the rangefinder, if you have one, as well as the ominous parallelism of the standard. You risk to ruin your Linhof forever, especially because they are very sensitive cameras, that fit well into a display cabinet but not on a real existing tripod out in the field.
Regards
fotografie.ist ...
Ah, it's not that bad IF you have the tools & brains to figure it out...
Aluminium tracks get a sticky oxide on them over time, and should be polished to remove the oxide, then followed with an anti - oxide treatment like NO-OX-ID, and a trace of silicone grease over it to prevent further oxidation, and prevent seizing... That previous owner seemed to glop a petroleum base grease all over it, that outgassed... Bad!!!
I got a TEK III many years ago, that had some impact damage to the bed area, and had been stored in an outside shed in the humid deep south (= corrosion), but the camera responded very well to restoration... Some pivots and slides were frozen in place, but freed, polished and lightly lubed worked very well!!! All in all, a good camera to restore properly... But I am a camera tech, and also have precision measuring tools, so using some logic, you can get it right... The cameras hold their old adjustments well, so if they haven't been tampered with, copy that setting before dissambly... But I don't bother with RF's, so don't ask me...
I have seen previous comments from you about yours, but it sounds like someone messed with it, but better cameras to restore used than the one you have experience with, so keep the faith!!!
If in doubt, send it out...
Regards,
Steve K
Tony, I had to do a necessary repair to my old style flat bed Tek III, that required removing the focus track... I suspect the removal might be somewhat the same... Or at least it might give you an idea how Linhof did it in the past...
First, my camera had been modified so that the front bed could be completely dropped off its struts and fall straight down for UWA use...Once the RF cam was removed, it could hang down...
At the end of the rear of the track travel near the hinge, there was a large stop screw that prevented the track from going back too far... If that screw was removed and the bed hung down, the track would come off the rear of the track...
On many press cameras I serviced, tracks would bind up due to moisture that would work it's way into the tracks (due to barometric pressure) and not leave, causing internal corrosion... Tracks would have to be removed, polished, lubed, and reinstalled... Then they would ride smooth again...
They would polish with rubbing, lapping compound, or even toothpaste as that contained fluoride that prevented corrosion on aluminum, or Noxit used by the electrical trades...
If used, this would need to be cleaned out throughly before reinstillation, and a little silicone grease or petroleum jelly film...
Don't just remove the bed strut mounts, as there is an adjustment for the bed straightness under those, but if you have to, a straightedge or flat metal block between the rear and front rails should get you very close to straight alignment if you have to remove the strut mounts...
If it doubt, send it out... ;-*
Steve K
Moby grease!?!! Is that whale oil?!??
We don't use that in the states no more... :-0
Congrats on your mission!!!
Steve K
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks