Saturday, February 4, 2012

Canon Canonet QL19 #2

I bought a Canon Canonet QL19 with Bell & Howell name on the top cover. I thought that this camera is the same as regular QL19 but it was not. The Bell and Howell model was earlier model and has different depth to the battery holder. I am going to swap parts with QL19 and make it into a regular QL19. The rest of the parts look the same.
 As usual, the shutter needed clean and lube, the galvanometer was sluggish so I will replace that.
The main problem is the wind lever does not return quickly. It returns but does it slowly. I cleaned the wind parts on the top and bottom and still did not cure the problem so I had to disassemble the camera to find the culprit.

The slow wind return lever was caused by these three parts. They needed cleaning.

Here I am giving new grease to the focusing helicoid.



Here is the video of the shutter in operation.
As you can see, the wind lever return with a snap.

The meter is moving fine after I had replaced the galvanometer.