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Disassembly, cleaning and lubrication of a Path


Joel Pierre

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Can you still get 9.5mm film?

 

Also from Grahame Newnham (Fuji Velvia) in the UK apparently:

http://www.pathefilm.freeserve.co.uk/

 

 

Even here in Australia DVD Infinity advertise 9.5mm stock, processing and transfer (Ektachrome 100D) on their website:

http://www.dvdinfinity.com.au/9_5.htm

 

And people say film is dead.. :)

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I have disassembled, cleaned and lubricated my camera.


The receive spool is turning. This problem seems solved.


CFxpyfHTQcN_pathewebom95.jpg


The hardest part is reassembling the front. How to ensure that the shutter is well positioned with the advance of the film?


Is there a way to do that for sure or is it just a fluke?


How to clean the mirror and the frosted without damaging them?
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There’s more to it. First you have to bring claw drive and shutter drive correctly timed to mesh with the governor worms and then it’s about jiggling the front in the two directions left with the mechanism running until you have everything at peak performance. The only thing you have is your feel, above all your acoustic sense, that will allow you to determine when the gears work best. Finally the four screws in the front will be fastened, carefully one by one, and don’t let it slip.

 

Still the front can be knocked off position any time because there is no form fit between it and the main frame. Never a simple screw does positively position anything. Half a tenth of a millimeter may suffice to stall the mechanism, something that happens often with these cameras.

 

If you want to clean the pellicle, you have to disassemble until you can remove it. You best clean it with cotton swabs on a piece of soft rubber. If it’s glued in, better purchase a fresh one and mount it under soft rubber straps or dried rubber cement pads you give to the hold-down piece.

 

The prism and lens combo are another pain. I have decided to glue both down into the aluminum holder, the lens offers two small surfaces for a little rubber cement, and then clamp the whole down into the groove between brass bands one of which I gave a corrugated form and the other a single longitudinal bend. Don’t hope you can mount the innards perfectly at first go. Lens and prism must stand at right angle to the membrane in two directions and must be aligned in all three directions, the one along the optical axis being especially critical since the ground surface must provide for focus with a lens set to infinity. The younger models have a little set screw for that.

 

For coincidence of aperture and finder view you’ll need to clamp the front somehow. The rest is Yippee ki-yay, M . . .

 

There’s still more. The mechanism plate which bears the sprocket wheel isn’t positioned by any means, either. There are only three screws. Again, trial and error until the gears turn best. One of the three shafts that find a guidance with the plate is not accessible after mounting, so put some grease in that bearing.

 

 

Ce n’est pas tout. Tu dois d’abord chercher synchronisme de la griffe et l’obturateur sur les vis sans fin du régulateur et puis il s’agit de bouger le front dans les deux directions qui restent, le mécanisme marchant, jusqu’à tout fonctionne au meilleur. Tu n’as que tes sens, avant tout l’ouïe, par laquelle tu peux décider si ça marche bien. Finalement, il faut serrer les quatre vis du front, avec circonspection, sans altérer sa position.

 

Mais le front peut toujours glisser parce qu’il n’y a pas de forme finale entre lui et le boîtier. Des vis simples ne mettent jamais rien en position. Un dixième millimètre peut suffir pour bloquer le mécanisme, quelque chose qui arrive souvant à ces caméras.

 

Si tu veux nettoyer la membrane il te faut ouvrir tout afin de la retirer. Je la nettoye sur un morceau de gomme douce à l’aide des bâtonnets ouatés. Si elle est collée tu fairas mieux d’acheter une nouvelle et de la monter sous de la colle élastique que tu donnes au pièce de retenu.

 

La combinaison prisme-lentille, c’est encore une histoire. Moi, j’ai décidé de coller les deux dans leur manteau en aluminium. La lentille offre deux petites surfaces pour un peu de colle. Je pousse l’ensemble dans la rainure entre des bandes de laiton, une ondulé, l’autre courbé en sens longitudinal. Ne crois pas que ça se monte aisément. La lentille et le prisme doivent être alignés perpendiculairement à l’axe optique, sur bonne hauteur et décalés précisement au foyer d’un objectif mis à l’infini. Les modèles plus récents ont une vis sans tête pour cela.

 

Pour mettre en coïncidence le fenêtre d’impression et le champ du viseur on doit fixer le front d’une façon. Le reste est une toute petite peine.

 

Je nai pas encore fini. La platine du mécanisme qui porte le tambour denté n’est fixé par aucun moyen non plus. Il n’y a que trois vis. De nouveau, essai et erreur jusque l’engrenage marche bien. Un des trois pivots qui trouvent guidage dans la platine n’est pas accessible après montage. Tu mets donc de la graisse dans ce palier.

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Yippee ki-yay, M . . .

 

 

One of my (now retired) camera technician mentors used to say he hated working on Pathes. From your description Simon I can see why!

Where would you get a new reflex pellicle by the way? Another old timer I know told me he used the thinnest microscope slide cover plates he could find and cut them to size, which I thought was an interesting solution.

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Basically, any thin glass is suitable, the original ones are said to have 0,13 mm thickness or five mils (believe it or not, I am one who likes the Imperial measurements system), but one side should be anti-reflex treated.

 

Link to England: http://www.pathefilm.freeserve.co.uk/95ninefive.htm

scroll down almost to bottom of page

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