Repaired an old Bessa, but ...

[PaulC]

How are you meant to reconnect the shutter to the bellows?

I managed to do it in the end but in a rather rough way and at some risk of damaging the camera. There must be a "proper" way of getting the lens aligned with the hole in the bellows so that the back ring can easily be attached, without scratching either the ring or the inside of the bellows, and without packing paper in front of the lens so that when the cover closes the lens is pushed hard up against the bellows, so there was enough thread for the ring to grip (which was my eventual solution).

Can anybody point me to instructions on the correct way of doing this operation in case I need to try again some time?

Incidentally, this 1935 Bessa was a $15 disaster from ebay, with fungus and muck inside the lens and corrosion all over the body. Strangely enough, the bellows seem good, the shutter seems to operate at all (meaning both! - 1/25 and 1/75 + T & B) speeds - goodness knows if they are accurate - and the aperture and focusing are smooth. Inside the body is clean, so I guess this wreck is in working order now that the glass is clean. It's quite impressive that the shutter and bellows seem so good from something that, with an f7.7 Voigtar lens (revived or perhaps left over from the 1929 model) was clearly the very bottom of the Voigtlander range.

[Farside]

It's not a Bessa, but according to this, reassembly is a reversal of disassembly
http://www.rolandandcaroline.co.uk/sync5.html Nothing is said about any difficulties.

My Bessa has been in the wars (possibly literally) and is cosmetically quite worn here and there, but mechanically it's survived reasonably well - tough old beasts.

[PaulC]

Thanks, Dave, that's a great site. I've bookmarked it.

What they don't tell you (or maybe it is different with different cameras) is that when you undo the back nut with the bellows door shut, the lens/shutter assembly just falls out into the space behind. Therefore, when you try to put the nut back on, you have to have your fingers or something else inside the bellows door, pushing the shutter assembly back through the bellows hole.

The bellows are close-in around the nut, so they got scuffed, breaking some of the threads in the cotton lining, while I was struggling to get the nut to grip on the thread. I guess that when these were made, the shutter would have been put into the bellows and then the whole unit could be connected to the camera body. That way, the bellows door would not be in the way when the shutter was put into the bellows.

My Bessa has cleaned up really well, after a few hours scrubbing the crud off it. I've just checked the focus, which is fine (though it seems to vignette a lot, if the image on the waxed paper is any indication). It's time to put a roll of Pan F into it.