Tag Archives: repairs

Makeover time!

The Halina Paulette I have just posted about was, frankly, a little shabby in the fabric department. So, since I have rather fallen for this camera and have no intention of parting with it in the remotely near future, I have given it a makeover.

Having pulled off (with great ease actually) the black leatherette, I used it as a template for the fabrics with which I covered it. I have a *lot* of crafty bits and bobs lying around, and the front is now covered with some upholsterers tape taken from a book of samples I picked up years ago. It has provided a lovely, tactile surface for picture taking.

I managed to find a fabric to compliment the colours, with which I have covered the back. I used bookbinders glue (basically quite a thick PVA) to stick them down and, when that was dry, applied a layer of Mod Podge to the outside to make them at least a little water-resistant and wipe-cleanable.

Now I need to work on resisting covering everything else in sight. It would be wise not to stand too still around me.

(And after all this, I’m hoping the light-leak repair worked!)

Repairing the Voigtlander Brilliant

A while back – maybe last year – I was lucky enough to find a Voigtlander Focusing Brilliant, the best Brilliant (superlatives notwithstanding) that money can buy with a Compur shutter, and a true TLR, unlike the majority of earlier faux-TLR models. The only real problem with it was that the mirror was so badly corroded that it was near impossible to focus.

This camera was manufactured in 1938 and it’s reputed to have a decent lens, so it seemed a real shame to just let it gather dust. I removed the finder (4 small screws inside the hood, 3 of which were rusted through) to reveal the mirror, which as you can see, is fubar.

In picture two you can see an old make-up mirror of Alice’s which was almost the right size, I cleaned it up and measured out the replacement mirror size and cut it to fit.

All said and done it was a very easy operation, the new mirror dropped right into place and now it is quite perfect, as good as new in fact, which isn’t bad for a camera that is about to turn 75!

So that (in the odd spare moment) is what I’ve been doing this week. I have also cleaned up a Kodak Cresta, fixed a light leak on a Voigtlander Bessa and loaded new colour film into a Box Brownie. The light hasn’t been great though this week, and the box Brownies only work well under the best conditions. Other than that I’ve processed film from the Mamiya C330, and also from the Kodak Duex, which looks pretty random on the negs, but we shall see soon enough.

I’m about to process a roll of Neopan 1600 that I shot through a lensbaby, I have no real idea what to expect, but I’ll get some galleries up soon.