Replacing shutter cloth on a Zorki 4

[Roger Vadim]

Hi all!

I have a Zorki 4 in overall good shape and especially like the bright finder (much better than the one in my fed2).
But the shutter curtain has been painted thickly with some sort of laquer paint, its wobbly and doesnt look very trustfull. I would like to change the curtains and perform a CLA. My question is: is it very difficult to change the curtains, and ist it worth the effort (might just by another one for parts with a good shutter...)

Has anybody changed the curtain and could give me some advise?

Thanks, Michael

[ZorkiKat]

The description of your Zorki's shutter does warrant replacement. To do this, you must know how to take the Zorki-4 apart. The best reference would be Isaak Maizenberg's books.

I have replaced the shutters in my Zorki, FED, and even Zenit cameras. No Zorki-4 however. The replacement material isn't very critical, and you can use the shutter cloth from camera-repair supplies.

To give you an idea how shutter replacement is done, and the subsequent operations needed to put it back to running state, see here:http://jay.fedka.com/index_files/Page455.htm

Note that the operations shown are for Zorki-1 or FED-1. The Zorki-4 has a more complicated assembly and has extra parts like the slow speed mechanisma as well as flash synch switch. But to be able to work on later models, it would best to see how the basic mechanism works first

Jay

[Roger Vadim]

Thanks Jay,
I'll had a look, the site looked promising. Which material do you use for the replacement?

[wolves3012]

If you follow the sticky "HOW TO - Zorki 4K CLA" it'll get you pretty close to being able to get at the shutter curtains - you just need to remove the RF to get at one of the top plate screws. After that, ZorkiKat's site will show you the rest. Underneath the additional complexity the shutter is pretty much the same on later FEDs and Zorkis as the early ones. It's tedious and fiddly but not difficult. The bit that'll try your patience is reassembling the parts into the crate whilst keeping the curtains, laths etc all in the right relative positions!

[Roger Vadim]

Thanks for your help!!
hmhm... looks like some work... i am not sure about this stripping the camera down thing... i once ruined a nikon FE because i couldn't get the mirror house back in the frame - the link to the trigger didn't work. and this sounds very simmilar...
now i have a stripped down FE for parts...(which might come in handy in 20 years when the other FE's fail to work(sic!))

maybe i wait until winter for that attempt anyway. And check the speeds extensivly on slide film (I normaly do B/W...)

cheers, michael

[ZorkiKat]

Originally Posted by Roger Vadim

Which material do you use for the replacement?

I make the cloth myself

Jay