M6 shutter curtain issues

[chuckr]

hello cs'ers,

i took a friend's m6 out to test a roll of film to see if everything is working properly, as it hasn't been used in probably a decade. it was part of a collection so it's in quite excellent condition and everything was working smoothly. the meter is working properly and all the shutterspeeds sounded accurate, and when i got back the negatives they were properly exposed.

there was one problem though, on some frames there is a band of white overexposure, like a lightleak. when i checked the camera itself, i discovered that in fact on some shutterspeeds the shutter doesn't seem to be closing all the way after exposure, leaving tiny tiny line of open space, but enough to cause the overexposure. here's an example:

have any of you guys encountered this before? would you know where i could have this repaired here in sg, and how much it might cost? or is it one of those things that a good exercising of the camera could fix? my friend was interested in selling it anyway, do you think it might just be smarter to sell the camera at a lower price to someone who was more willing to go through the repair process themselves?

thanks for the wisdom guys

chuck

 

[third3rdwheel]

Hi,

I experienced the same problem with my M6 recently. It's the shutter, which I understand can be repaired for about SGD$200 by local camera repair technicians. However, I have chosen to send my camera to Leica to be fixed. No, I don't think exercising the shutter will solve the problem - as I did that and also shot about 3 rolls on the camera. White Streak still there.

Don't know how much it would cost eventually for my M6, because it is still being repaired at this moment.

Looks like it is a problem that can happen with old Leica RFs that have not been used for some time. So before buying, it is better to test, just like you have done. Smart move. I should have done that too.

 

[jimbo12345]

I guess it would be slower speeds that would be jamming up. Sometimes some 'exercising' would free up the dried up lube. But usually for sales, buyer would prefer getting a working camera straight away, no? If you don't do a cla, then it'll be fair to take into consideration the price of a cla. =)