Compur shutter repair needed

Can anyone direct me to a qualified repair person for servicing a Compur shutter for my Linhof Technika V? Preferably someone in France for shipping economy, but I'll ship to anywhere in Europe. I'm hoping to find someone that will offer great service, reasonable pricing and a quick turn around time. hah. I have several shutters that need servicing but this one is the most urgent.

After a quick search, I found this https://www.photosuffren.com/content/6-sav-et-reparations via the Galerie Photo forums http://www.galerie-photo.info/forumgp/

Compur shutter servicing and repair is relatively straight forward, something any good commercial camera repairer should be able to do.

Dan Fromm posts I think on that French forum, you might try asking him. I don't know what UK repair prices are like now but 8/9 years ago it was £50 + VAT for a shutter CLA, and that meant stripping right down to the bare casing cleaning everything then rebuilding, it's a difficult job re-assembling aperture until you have the knack.

The older rim-set Compur shutters are quite robust, I think they'll long out last modern Copal shutters the springs are a bit heftier. I've been using an 80+ year old rim-set Compur with a post WWII T (coated) 150mm Tessar and it's more accurate than Copals, as are my older Dial-set Compurs, the earliest being made in 1913

Deckel who owned Compur was a partner in Linhof as well, hence the customised shutter face plates etc for Linhof select lenses.

I get my shutters serviced by Black on White, in Bristol here in the UK, I send focus screens and other items abroad and the difference in postage is not much at all. But you should be able to find someone easily in France, even in English I can come up with a Google list of Camera repairers there.

Ian

Thank you very much Joanna and Ian. I have to admit, I tried the advice of someone on this site of using denatured alcohol on the blades which indeed made it work on most speeds but as soon as the alcohol disappeared the shutter stopped working altogether. ugh. The problem in France is the price...everything like this is more expensive but the silver lining is a shorter wait time. Thank you all.

There's a knack to cleaning sticky Compur shutters, sometimes they do stop when first cleaned. I guess I've cleaned about 30 Dial-set and Rim-set that were just sticky, plus quite a few lazy Illex and Wollensack shutters. The problem is when the cost of repair is close to the cost of actually finding a better lens and shutter.

The 90mm Angulons are relatively inexpensive, don't go by Ebay BIN prices, I think I paid £80/90 euros for mine, and see good ones regularly for £80-£100, a bit more for a very late one in the newer type Compur.

Ian

I agree with you on that. I have since looked around and have seen lenses selling for virtually the cost of a cla.

There is another option, look for a spare shutter, they do appear relatively cheap but rather randomly. I bought 6 at a camera fair, £10 each or 3 for £20, so I bought two sets of 3. One had some lens cells, it was a near mint 203mm f7.7 Ektar in a Prontor SVS working perfectly, there was also a new unused Prontor (press type) shutter with a blank aperture scale. I can't remember what the others were except for a #00 Compur Rapid with foggy Novar off a Super Ikonta, while the lens is useless good #00 Compurs are hard to find so it's potentially a spare shutter for my 65mm Super Angulon.

I have the lens cells for a pre WWWII 90mm f6.8 Angulon (slightly more coverage) and spotted a Compur #0 shutter two weeks ago on Ebay with the correct aperture scale, I think the seller wanted too much for it.

There's plenty of older Compur #0 & #1 shutters around it's finding the right one, not all have cable release sockets or preview levers. (or flash synch) and usually it's just a case of switching the aperture scales but the Linhof ones differ.

Ian

good idea.

I trawled through 7 pages on Ebay early this morning, searching "Compur", and another 3 for "Prontor", the 90mm f.8 Angulon also came in a Prontor but are rare. I tend to do a search about once a week and it has paid off, I've found a few brand new "old" shutters.

Wanted adverts are another way of finding shutters the US LF forum or Photrio (APUG) but you need to be a subscriber.

The early post WWII 90mm f6.8 Angulons have a reputation for hit & miss performance, the late Dean Jones (Razzledog) an Australian camera repairer used to make 5x4 Polaroid conversions and fit them. He discovered that the shutters themselves sometime had barrel lengths that were slightly out of tolerance affecting the spacing, he'd strip the shutter and machine to the correct tolerance, that corrected the poor sharpness some suffered from.

Linhof actually took batches of lenses from manufacturers and selected the ones they wanted after optical testing, returning the rest. The issue is supposed to have been resolved by the 5 million and higher SNs.

Sometime you can find the 89mm f6.3 Wray WA in a Compur, they are poor optically so often cheap, the cells would be a direct swap and the aperture scales match, The engraved FL is usually nominal anyway and the actual FL is often slightly longer and in a few cases shorter, and even then can vary +/- 1% according to a Schneider data sheet, I'm looking at.

Ian

I have been scanning Ebay, too and did find a nice looking Compur shutter exactly like mine in Germany but he wants 149€ for it and it's only the shutter. lol. I'll eventually stumble on to something, I'm sure. Thanks for you input! Really great info.