Repaired a very rough stereo realist 2.8 camera, its shutter was stuck, shutter cocking lever hanging loose and not winding on, very tight aperture adjustment, partially blocked rangefinder, and only leather on the bottom plate with bare metal around, with a good layer of dirt all around it. This is my very first stereo camera, when I saw it in person I was actually pretty worried that it was a lost cause, it was really the one of roughest and ugliest camera I have ever bought.
I stripped it all down, and cleaned furiously, and scrapped off the remaining leather pieces. I went through many many Q-tips. The camera was worked on by someone before me in the past, which is a bit scary when repairing camera as you dont know what went on previously. The shutter mechanism was flushed to get it firing, T mode did not work as well, but I traced it back to a spring that was stuck under a part and not resting on a return lever, with it in place T worked and did not act as bulb. The shutter cocking ring also did not return as the spring was knocked off as well. I had to unscrew the front lens cells, as the aperture change was very stiff, the cause of it was a very dirty/rusty aperture blades on the right lens. These were cleaned (took forever) and lubed with graphite/moly powder and internal lens surfaces cleaned. The connecting aperture band was also a bit wrinkled and was flipped, I had to reposition it after shooting my test roll as I installed it incorrectly and it blocked aperture adjustment smaller than f8. The moving shutter blades inside the camera/facing the film chamber that were partially stuck also had a bit of this reddish rust and also took a bit to clean off before it was firing smoothly. The remaining leather on the bottom plate was scraped off to get access to the rangefinder. Within the rangefinder two pieces of black felt were peeling off and hanging in the way of the mirrors path. These were carefully glued back with a bit of black liquid electrical tape with a very fine brush, alignment was also checked for accuracy. The top plate was also removed and cleaned to check on a slightly sticking double exposure lever that turned out to be nothing. Inside the film compartment also needed a good bit of cleaning. With everything bare, I shot a test roll, the spacing was good, and the shutter speeds worked ok, but there were a lot of light leaks throughout the roll and a few shots oddly double exposing (I think my fault). I then used some very thin and fine grained calf leather, using a paper templates I cut and plioboned the leather on all sides and the base. The film door on the locking latch received an additional piece of black adhesive closed cell foam to prevent light leaks as that edge is not as robustly shielded as on the other film door edges.
I just developed the second test roll and everything looks good. though the spacing is very tight (with a clear line and no overlaps) which will make it pretty hard to cut without a special cutter. In another post I made, I added a bubble level into the viewfinder with some removal poster putty, its working well but the blockage takes some getting used to. Overall this repair actually had some of the most useful information online, and even a guide video on youtube which I studied as well, everything on the camera can be taken apart with a flat head screwdriver, and access to most parts were very easy and linkages pretty straight forward compared to the other cameras I have fixed.
