Somedays you collect something that may come in handy in some possible future restoration. Farmers with a back field populated with their first tractor, their first cars and trucks and possibly a World War Bomber—all missing so many parts they are barely identifiable—know the only thing that will get you past your immediate problems is a part you can force into place to get the equipment working again. Sometimes, if you collect enough bits, you can assemble a completely restored version of things like cars, tractors and in my case, cameras.
I have a fine Argus C-3 sitting around here somewhere. They are unique cameras for several reasons as well as being very, very common. So when I had a chance to collect a very trashed Argus C-3 I didn’t hesitate for a moment. When it arrived it looked as if it had been sharing that back field with the implements (and bomber).
I should explain a little about what makes a unique camera like the C-3 so interesting. Most shutters are built around the lens, or built around the mirror-box in SLR’s, but not C-3‘s. Unlike virtually every other camera the C-3 takes three-quarters of the front—behind the front face—for it’s shutter. The shutter is set in two places. First the surround of the shutter release has two positions; “I” and “B”. The C-3 shutter’s instant speeds are set by that upper right wheel to 10, 25, 50, 100 and 300 sec. That wheel has to be turned counter-clock-wise (indicated by a little arrow) to change shutter speeds. Turning it the wrong way will eventually mess up the shutter.
That whole front comes off, but you have to remove a lot of leatherette to expose the screws. Between the photography session that gave us these images and writing this text a piece of that leatherette has fallen off the upper right corner. It exposed a common, flat-blade countersunk screw. I expect there will be other screws at the other corners. That shutter dial has a screw in its center, so it probably comes off. The shutter cocking lever (black lever just above the “Argus” nameplate) has a nut under it, so it comes off. Then the whole front should come off.
In case you wonder, the shutter sort of works. Cocked and fired on the bulb setting it opens and stays open until you release the pressure on the shutter button. This may not sound like much until I tell you it took cocking and firing the shutter probably 50-times before the rust freed up enough to get that much. It doesn’t matter where the shutter dial is set, you get bulb.
With the shutter set to instant all the speeds work except the slowest two (so three speeds work). It is fun to see the reason the shutter doesn’t work at 25 and 10 is because it doesn’t fully open. Gently pressing the blades out fully makes the blades snap shut again (they don’t close until you get your fingers away).
See the three geared together rings? The one around the lens mount is not meshed with the middle gear and it should be The middle one has a screw cover. Use your finger pad to turn it counter-clock-wise. Then the middle gear should pry off. This allows you to rotate both the rangefinder surround (top left) and lens independently. This has a purpose when switching lenses we won’t get into, but there are more parts to play with.
The C-3 has a continuous top, side, bottom and other side. See all those screws you can remove on the top deck?
Starting at the left you have—
a perfectly good winding knob
an accessory shoe
a Phillips-head screw
an adjustment cover (above accessory shoe)
a frame counter wheel
another Phillips-head screw
a possible shutter/cable/shutter speed assembly (hopefully removable from under the top)
That frame-counter release—silver hex head below frame counter—might come off from the inside too.
In the inside there seems to be access to a sprocketed frame counter wheel and at the left—at the top of the take-up chamber (far left) —there is a large nut that should release more parts. The rangefinder and viewfinder optics are held in by snap rings. While we are here note the bare casting just above the sprocket wheel. It reminds me of some of my old cast metal cars. It helps to explain the solid feel of these cameras.
The whole back comes off by driving out a very thin wire. It is a beautiful bit of casting with multiple flourishes like rivets, metal bits and pressed-in lens surrounds.
I suspect the bottom of the camera is in the best shape. That knurled ring on the left has a large nut behind it. There may have been a missing part threaded on that shaft on the right.
One problem with many parts cameras is someone has certainly harvested some of their parts already (where the heck is the lens?).
Comentários