Edward Jurich

You know, I've never wound mine backwards so you are probably correct. I never tried doing any effects in the camera, strictly shot straight scenes. I bought this camera used in 1971 from Altman Camera in Chicago. The camera sat apart all night and this morning the spray I used to loosen things up has pretty much evaporated. There is only a slight coating of silicone remaining, so slight you can hardly tell. The silicone grease is still on the gears of course. Looking down into the bell of the governor I don't see anything that looks like graphite or any kind of lube, touched a q-tip in the bell and it came out clean. I'll reassemble it later today and run an old 100' roll through to make sure it's pulling film OK before shooting a test roll.

Forgot to mention, my H-16 has the dual claw, a second claw holds the film in place while the pull claw goes down.

The camera is running fine. The governor would be the main concern, it's really the only thing that uses friction as a control, at least in my H-16. The speed control is fine. Also, most of the spray has evaporated, the amount of silicone left is very slight. After the drive loosened up I used a can of air to blow out the excess spray. I did use silicone grease on the gears and a couple spots where metal rubs on metal. I would have used Teflon grease but could not find any, perhaps next time. I've got a roll of TRI-X I'll use to test the Bolex when finished. http://ejjamps.weebly.com/bolex.html

Just in case someone has the same problem. I let my H-16 sit for 10 years and when I went to check it, it was frozen. All the suggestions mentioned above did not work. I had mine apart in the 1980's to lubricate so I took it apart again. Sprayed 'Liquid Wrench Silicone' all inside and into the claw movement. Even after that it would not budge. What worked was to slowly turn the shutter blade clockwise and after about four turns it started running on its own. This requires careful work. You have to remove several parts off from the rear so the camera can be pulled out of the case. Then the turret has to be removed. After removing the screws holding the turret the turret and gate plate slide forward off the camera being careful not to bend the shutter blade. Remove five screws holding the camera in the case and the camera slides out of the body. Be aware that with the turret and gate off the claw will try to spring forward and hit the shutter. A small screwdriver can be used to hold the claw from flying out while turning the shutter blade clockwise. It would be best to use the single frame trigger so the shutter blade will only spin around once at 8 or 12 FPS once it frees up.