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K3 gear grease?


Trevor Greenfield

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So when I got my K3, the seller did a terrible job and didn't protect the case, nor did he cover up the mount, and consequently the packing balls he used got all inside of the case and a few found their way into the camera itself. I spent a few hours cleaning everything, but I found that the wind didn't work. I figured a few of the balls were caught in the wind gears. I removed the face plate and very carefully took out all of the little balls I could find in the front of the camera. It still wouldnt wind. I forced the shutter around and it finally felt like it clicked into place. It wound and worked. I spent the next two hours looking into the backside of the camera through the front and locating the little balls that had fallen into the backside of the camera, behind the baffle plate, and removing them. I fully wound and discharged my little Katrina (my pet name for her) about 10 times, each time the spring running sounded like it got smoother and smoother, but I am still thinking it would be a good idea to take off the baffle plate. While it is off, I will remove the loop formers, but also I'd like to grease all of the gears again.

 

Any suggestions for some long lasting grease? Any piece or gear I should NOT grease? Thanks in advance for your suggestions/comments.

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Most K-3's have a horrible amount of a nasty black grease inside of them. You should be able to simply move some grease to where you need it. When you take the baffle plate off make sure you unscrew the six larger screws on the plate not the tiny ones. Once the plate is off you can cut and remove the string on the back of the baffle plate that controls the loop former machanism. Leave the film footage counter in place but you can remove the string from it.

 

When you replace the baffle plate make sure to place the "anti-reverse" gear or whatever it's called in the claws on the back of the baffle. Push the baffle plate into the camera and wind the mechanism a tiny bit so the gear engages the shaft. It's almost impossible to get the baffle to seat the other way round.

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great advice, thank you. Yes just from looking inside I have noticed a liberal amount of grease, must have been surplus from USSR tanks :D Later on I will be converting to s16 and crystal sync. As another side note, I have already tried blimping this camera with a simple winter Starter jacket. It is quiet enough that if I shot with a unidirectional boom I should have no problem.

 

I just spoke with the seller. He says he didn't put any white balls in it, he used plastic like what we call visqueen here in the USA, Customs must have taken it all apart for security reasons. They must have ziplocks or something like that there that he could have packed the camera in. Oh well.

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