BLACKOUT SHADES BLINDS

My wife's speed graphic jammed today so I bravely/stupidly thought I would try and fix it.

The symptoms were the back/front/trip selector had jammed in the front position. The shutter had closed and you couldn't fire it from the trip on the front either.

Here's the mechanism with the top plate taken off. There are six screws to take the top plate off, note that the two bigger ones screw into the top of plate/camera, shown on the left here.

The back comes off with 5 wood screws, plus one cunningly hidden behind the ground glass holder, that's tricky to get out. There's also a screw you need to undo to get the back part of the viewfinder sight off. It's handy to take the back off because you can see the rollers and moving them around when you reassemble the shutter is easier.

The actual shutter curtain comprises of a long roll of rubbber which is spooled on two rollers at the top and bottom of inside of the camera. The rubbber has different sized slits in it which correspond to the shutter speeds, the smaller the slit the faster the shutter speed.

The rubber is wound from the bottom roller onto the top one when you cock the shutter. The bottom roller is tensioned with a spring within the roller. The tensioning adjustment is locked off by the the large screw at the bottom right of this image. The bottom roller spigot pokes out just to the left of the big screw. You can put a small screwdriver in the end of the spigot, turn it anticlockwise to increase the tension. The large semicircular brass bit to the left of the big screw is a govenor for moderating the shutter speed. This engages on a cog which is attached to the bottom roller. If you flick the shutter speed switch to the high speed it disengages the govenor.

There are four small brass wood screws which hold this assembly onto the camera body. It's probably a good idea to untension the spring on the bottom roller before undoing these screws.

The camera's back in one piece now and no spare screws!

Today I got another roll of film processed from my dad's old camera. I replaced the battery, taped up the broken lens and fired the shutter over and over to make sure it was running smoothly. I'm really happy that most of the photos turned out. There's still a few little issues but overally I'm really pleased.