FS New Copal 0 shutter

[Peter B]

I'm not afraid of the cold, Peter. Better that than the 105 degree F heat we had all summer here.

I'm no expert on cold Mike, but I understand from another forum that the biggie is the humidity, since dry cold feels warmer/better than damp cold. A quick check on Google gets me Dallas as -3C and 41% humidity, whereas here in Inverness we have 98% humidity to go with our -3C on Sunday.
I'm better with heat and can tell you that 105F is possibly beyond my ability to survive! I know that 30C equals 86F and that's about the limit of my comfort zone, although I suppose I could acclimatise if the high temps lasted a while. 105F seems to be about 40/41C, so good luck with that!

[Mike1234]

Bingo, Peter. Cold is better than hot in my current health condition.

[IanG]

Hi

What dose CLA stand for ?

And where would one get it done ? in England

How accurate should I expect a shutter to be

Thanks

Robin

Black on White in Bristol have done the last 3 CLA's - Clean, Lubricate, Adjust, for me and the shutters are all accurate now to well within 1/3 stop, I have tested the slower speeds and they are remarkably accurate, I have 80-90 year old Compurs that match modern Copals when tested.

B on W totally disassemble Copal/Compur type shutters clean the parts thoroughly then re-assemble and finally adjust, most UK repairers seem better than US counterparts getting speeds well within tolerance, so you don't get a piece of paper saying that the 1/5 is actually 1/2 etc

Ian

[RichardP]

Ian,

Can I ask how do you test the shutter speeds? I have never had my shutters cleaned and never tested to see if they speeds are accurate, is there a machine or something?

Regards,
Richard

[dave_whatever]

If you plug a mic into your pc you can record the sound of the shutter opening and view the file in any wave edit type software to establish the duration. I've done this a couple of times, it works really well.

[IanG]

Richard, it's remarkably easy and accurate to test the slow speed, all you need is a microphone and a program like Sound Forge or better still Audacity which is free.

Set the microphone and Audacity to record then cock the shutter and trip it at 1 second, then 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, etc then when you analyse the sound wave you can see the spike where the blades open & then later close, you zoom in and read off the time-line.

Looking at my 1933 Compur it takes less than 1/100th second for the mechanism to open the blade, and a fraction less to close them, but I can accurately measure how long they are open for in between and in my case despite it's age the shutter runs a fraction fast, they normally begin to run slower at they age.



You can hear the speeds here Compur. Accurate is within 15% of the marked speed.

As my most common speeds were generally below 1/30 this is a good test, it certainly tells you when speeds are drifting off. My newer Copal shutters inc very recent Copal 0 are a touch slower but then Copals are not as good as even pre-War Compur's in terms of long term reliability, even my dial-set Compurs are accurate.

Ian

[RichardP]

Thank you for the information, I have Audacity and a microphone so will give it a go and check out my lens.

Regards,

Richard

[mpirie]

[quote="Mike1234"]Bingo, Peter. Cold is better than hot in my current health condition.[/quote

A nice single malt can help with the cold. Either by heating you up or (if you drink enough of it) forgetting about the cold

Mike

[Mike1234]

Bingo, Peter. Cold is better than hot in my current health condition.

A nice single malt can help with the cold. Either by heating you up or (if you drink enough of it) forgetting about the cold

Mike

So true, sir!! However, being a backwards Texan, I prefer a good Tennesee Bourbon.

[mpirie]

Well Mike, If you ever make it over to Scotland we can have a great time comparing the two!

Mike

[Mike1234]

Well Mike, If you ever make it over to Scotland we can have a great time comparing the two!

Mike

Sounds great, Mike. Be prepared though... just as our California vinyards invaded French high-class high-dollar wines... our southern whiskies might win you over.