My Rolleiflex Restoration

[minicoop1985]

Well, I bought a Rolleiflex off eBay with those dreaded words: As-Is. Photos showed a well worn exterior that was incredibly dirty, but not much other than that. Well, after about 20 hours worth of work (my first Rolleiflex restoration-probably double what it would take if I did it again), this is the final result:


PC112514 by longm1985, on Flickr


PC112515 by longm1985, on Flickr


PC112516 by longm1985, on Flickr


PC112517 by longm1985, on Flickr

After getting it out of the box, I instantly realized the shutter was slow and sticky. Great. So I cleaned the living daylights out of the poor thing, ripped off the front plate and fixed the shutter. After I got it firing correctly, threw a roll of 120 through it and re-dyed the leather. There's intentionally a bit of patina left because, well, it is old. So, how did I do?

 

[Derrel]

Looks pretty alright!

 

[GDHLEWIS]

Very nice! How do you learn to do such things? I'm good at taking things to utter pieces in an orderly manor, putting it back together tho not so good lol

 

[gsgary]

Personally i like rough looking cameras i would have got the shutter working and left its looks, im looking for a very brassy Leica MP

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[minicoop1985]

GHD, I'm a tinkerer. I love ripping things apart and putting them back together. The internet helped me a bit here too, but mostly it was looking at the thing long enough to figure out how it works. Gary, I like them too, but this camera isn't for me. That's why I left the patina so it doesn't belie its age too much. This is an RF111A from the 1930s, so it has to have some sign that it's old, but it has to look good for its future owner when they (hopefully) get out and shoot it.

Thanks, everyone. Looks like my next project may be for myself: fixing shutter speeds on a Hasselblad 1600f (gulp). I'll update you all on how I massively screw that up. It doesn't look HARD, just incredibly time consuming.