Found - Yashica 635 (With A Surprise Inside!)

[Dave Colangelo]

I was at a new flea market this weekend and there were a few camera dealers which was cool. Lots of the usual over priced old Kodak stuff for interior decorating and a pool of broken brownies of various eras. There was however a few nice units and I decided to pull the trigger on a fairly nice Yashica 635. This is the TLR that shoots both 120 and 35mm film. It was complete with the full 35mm inserts so its good for both formats. I was out on a buddies boat later that day and decided to take the camera and run a roll of Portra 120 through it. In my haste at the flea market to get a good deal I failed to check the shutter speeds although I did check it for operation (it was working). Before loading the film I dry fired it a bit and realized that no matter what setting it was at (aside from bulb) it seemed to be firing at about the same speed. While this is hard to tell at the higher speeds I was not getting the usual unwinding at 1 second that I am used to on these cameras, 1/500th also seemed a bit slow. The pictures came out great but I decided to dig into the camera today and see what I can find. People were reporting problems with those era Yashicas getting stuck in bulb but a quick google did not turn anything up so the disassembly ensued.

Here is the camera (after reassembly) but with the front skin removed.

The whole lens mount unit comes right off the rails pretty easily

Some more disassembly gets you to the lens unit its self. This is fairly similar to the Rolleichord I have but the assembly is more enclosed.

Into the lens to see what was going on

Some more disassembly leads us to the speed regulation mechanism. On the surface no damage was evident and everything seemed in place.

Took it apart and Surprise! it was jammed up with nothing short of a spider web. Removed it, put some oil in and put it all back together.

Its now working like a charm, more adventures with it shall ensue!

(obligatory sample image from the day)

Regards
Dave

 

[tirediron]

Nice.

 

[otherprof]

I was at a new flea market this weekend and there were a few camera dealers which was cool. Lots of the usual over priced old Kodak stuff for interior decorating and a pool of broken brownies of various eras. There was however a few nice units and I decided to pull the trigger on a fairly nice Yashica 635. This is the TLR that shoots both 120 and 35mm film. It was complete with the full 35mm inserts so its good for both formats. I was out on a buddies boat later that day and decided to take the camera and run a roll of Portra 120 through it. In my haste at the flea market to get a good deal I failed to check the shutter speeds although I did check it for operation (it was working). Before loading the film I dry fired it a bit and realized that no matter what setting it was at (aside from bulb) it seemed to be firing at about the same speed. While this is hard to tell at the higher speeds I was not getting the usual unwinding at 1 second that I am used to on these cameras, 1/500th also seemed a bit slow. The pictures came out great but I decided to dig into the camera today and see what I can find. People were reporting problems with those era Yashicas getting stuck in bulb but a quick google did not turn anything up so the disassembly ensued.

Here is the camera (after reassembly) but with the front skin removed.
View attachment 123280

The whole lens mount unit comes right off the rails pretty easily
View attachment 123281

Some more disassembly gets you to the lens unit its self. This is fairly similar to the Rolleichord I have but the assembly is more enclosed.
View attachment 123282

Into the lens to see what was going on
View attachment 123283

Some more disassembly leads us to the speed regulation mechanism. On the surface no damage was evident and everything seemed in place.
View attachment 123284

Took it apart and Surprise! it was jammed up with nothing short of a spider web. Removed it, put some oil in and put it all back together.
View attachment 123285

Its now working like a charm, more adventures with it shall ensue!

(obligatory sample image from the day)
View attachment 123286


Regards
Dave

Nice story, nice illustrative photos! Glad it worked out that way. I once bought a Red Ryder BB gun (the same one seen in A Christmas Story, with the wood stock and the name Red Ryder etched in it) from a 90+ year old man who was having a garage sale. When I asked if the Red Ryder was for sale, he said he would have to check with his son, since it belonged to him. He called his son, who must have been 70 years old and hadn't the foggiest idea what he was talking about. So I bought it for $5, fulfilling a childhood dream. The problem was it wouldn't put any ooomph behind the bb's. At first I thought it was dried gaskets, but when I took it apart I discovered a spider had died in the bb chamber, probably decades ago. I gave it a proper burial and the gun worked almost as hoped for.

 

[dxqcanada]

Hmm, I have never encountered a spider web in a camera before ... hmm.

 

[jcdeboever]

Sweet, well done. Bravo!

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[jcdeboever]

Hmm, I have never encountered a spider web in a camera before ... hmm.

I have, complete with spider corpse.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Dave442]

Very nice, thanks for posting this little operation on such a nice camera.

 

[Dave Colangelo]

Very nice, thanks for posting this little operation on such a nice camera.

Just as one last piece of advice. While not that difficult, disassembling the timing regulator is not for the faint of heart. Its very similar to a pocket watch movement actually there is a triple gear assembly that is held in place with a bridge. There is a 4th partial gear that is spring loaded (and drives the whole train). Getting it all back in place requires positively loading that gear which is tricky to say the least. There may be a better way to do it but I didn't have the manual so I'm not sure.

I still need to run another roll through to see if the now working shutter speeds are what they should be.

Regards
Dave

 

[dxqcanada]

Dave, do you have a blog/site on repairing ?

 

[table1349]

Itsy bitsy spider crawled up the Yashica mount,
Out came the rain and washed the spider out,
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain so the
Itsy bitsy spider crawled up the lens again.

Nice job. Enjoy they find, especially since you have now personalized the camera.

 

[Dave Colangelo]

Dave, do you have a blog/site on repairing ?

I currently dont (I have been keeping an Eye on yours though). I have lots of hobbies and they all seem to rotate although I try to make as many of them overlap as I can but it leaves little time for each more often than not. I have thought about a blog a few times, something more on the general side of my hobbies than camera repair specifically. Most of my hobbies are repair or mechanically related (cars, cameras, boats, planes etc...). I have also thought about some kind of youtube channel with hobby related content but have yet to come up with anything solid. I have been pretty busy with work as of late but the summer usually sees a slow down in that so I may have more time to put something together.

Regards
Dave

 

[dxqcanada]

Ah, too many things going on ... you've got skills, would be great to pass this on. That's the only reason I did my blog, this kind of stuff is getting lost to our new generation.
Tinkering was common in the old days when I was younger.

 

[Dave Colangelo]

Ah, too many things going on ... you've got skills, would be great to pass this on. That's the only reason I did my blog, this kind of stuff is getting lost to our new generation.
Tinkering was common in the old days when I was younger.

I have been trying to get threads going here as well as the other forums I am active on. I figure as long as its out on the internet history will find a way to perpetuate it. I think at this point I have enough content from all my various forum posts to consolidate it into a website. I may make it my summer project, we shall see. For what its worth I am a member of the "new generation" (or at 25 I at least think I fall in that category). I completely see how many of these things are being lost to my peers and it is hard. The internet has really helped save some of these dying hobbies. I have only been able to do what I have because of info on the internet, not only because of the information I have found but the tools I have been able to order and the fellow tinkerers that try similar things.

Regards
Dave

 

[dxqcanada]

Yeah, gotta give lots of credit to the InterWeb ... before that, us old people had to actually get physically close enough to hear/see what was going on to figure it out.