At the recent exhibition, a friend gave me two cameras to clean up and play with. This was one of them. On first inspection it was dirty and the shutter mechanism was unreliable.
I found this thread online with photos and cleaning instructions. Most Brownies are simple enough to take apart so I got started.
That went well, the mirror and viewfinder were so bright afterwards. I also found a loose screw which fixed the shutter issues when tightened.
Before I spent any more time on this camera, I wanted to see if it was working properly and light tight. I rerolled some expired Kodak RAR onto a 127 spool and got to shooting. I developed the film in caffenol which wasn’t the best choice for the film, but it let me see if the camera was working and how caffenol affected the film.
Success, exposures and no light leaks!
My friend also asked me to ‘pimp’ the camera in any way I liked. To be honest, it was such a pain to get certain parts back together that I really didn’t want to face taking it apart again. So I left it for a few days, then saw some cheap spray paint at Llidl’s and thought why not. I found the masking tape I used didn’t hold very well to the bakelite body, so there was some bleeding at the edges. After I took these photos, it bugged me enough that I went back and tidied it up with a permanent marker. I also used a chrome marker to add the silver stripes on the back and recolour the top. It’s not perfect, nothing I do is…or I think is. But the owner seems to like it.
With that done and dried, I loaded a roll of expired 120 Rollei RPX 400 cut to 127 and took it to Ripley. The cut film was a bit fat on extraction from the camera so there was a little fogging, luckily it was in between the shots.
Here are a few from that roll.
I think they came out quite well, the location matched the format and camera. Using 127 film, if you don’t use film regularly, can be quite expensive. So if this was my camera I might not bother again. It’s a nice shelf camera with the new paint job. I think the owner might put a roll through it just for fun, but I can’t see it being used beyond that.
This camera can be found quite cheaply, probably cheaper than the film and getting it processed. If you want to know more details about this camera, this link is a great resource.
The surgery was successful! Beautiful shots! I have a simpler Kodak Duaflex, 620 format. Three little steel balls inside the feed knob took a lot of work getting them back into place. I haven’t tried it yet because of the current cost in my country of 120 rolls, so I prefer to take the Yashica Mat EM or the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta (pre-war model 521/2) for a walk. But seeing your results I prepared for the next walk.
It’s very similar to the duaflex, I liked that one more due to the easier format. Happy that you will be taking out though.
Lovely shots and the make over is nice but some how looks ‘of the time’ for the camera
Thanks. No glitter on this one 😀
I’ve got one of these, which I bought so I could use the camera case.
Fixed aperture, fixed focus, fixed shutter speed…. but within those limits, it’s a nice camera. The “TLR”-style viewfinder is great fun, amazingly bright due to the lack of a focus screen between you and the lens. Loading / unloading the film is incredibly easy as the entire “works” drops out of the case. Very well thought out.
If only 127 film was still in mass production : (
I did make a film cutter to cut down 120 film, partly successful, got one good 127 film out of two 120 films. With a little adjustment it should work well next time.
Excellent, that is a bit much for me, and I bought the FCK127. After the clean, this one was very bright, too. If I didn’t have lots of hawkeyes, I would be tempted to get one to keep.