Heads up about damaged shutter curtains from old leather

I had a Rolleicord come in last week from a guy in Phoenix. The leather on the body was flaking apart and some of those tiny particles got inside the shutter mechanism. Three years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but after cleaning a dozen of these old German cameras I know better now. That leather dust acts like sandpaper on the cloth curtains. It scratched two of the blades on this one before he even noticed. Cost him $120 for a full shutter rebuild. Has anyone else run into leather degradation causing curtain damage on pre-war folders?

2 comments

2 Comments

fionak631mo ago

Whoa, wait, $120?! That's wild. @kevin_roberts41 you're totally right about the leather tax, that's the perfect name for it. I mean, I knew the dust was bad news but I always figured it just made the shutter sticky, not that it'd literally sandpaper the fabric curtains like that. Man, I've seen that flaky red stuff get into everything on old Ansco folders too, like the camera is falling apart on purpose. That poor guy got hit with a full rebuild over some tiny flakes, that's just brutal.

kevin_roberts411mo ago

Oh man, that's just a leather tax right there. $120 for a rebuild because some old cowhide turned into sandpaper. I've seen that flaky dust get into everything on these old folders, it's like the camera is shedding dead skin cells everywhere. Must be a special kind of frustration to pay that much for a problem that started as a $10 bellows issue or something. At least now he knows to vacuum out the leather flakes before they grind down the shutter curtains.