MyMinox

It’s been a while since my last post! Since then I’ve taken a LOT of photos, but still haven’t edited them post-scanning. Coming soon (maybe).

I’ve also purchased several new cameras – an A, BL, AX, DSC as well as some that I already own (as “spares”) – an LX, two Cs and a B. That’s a lot of Minox!

To the damaged LX – my first LX worked flawlessly for about a dozen rolls of film, and then the film advance wheel would no longer advance when cocking the camera. I figured since it was “already broken”, there was no harm is disassembling it to try and learn a little, and to see if it could be fixed. It turns out that the film advance wheel has a damaged tooth – it appears to be slightly rounded off, meaning that the advancing lever slips over the top and is unable to engage it correctly. Along the way I also damaged the shutter blades and springs, so these will need replacing. I don’t know if I’m up to the job of re-threading the microscopic shutter springs onto the retaining shafts, so I’ll look to replace the entire assembly instead.

I have a donor Minox C, and I suspect that the shutter blades and assembly are the same as that in the LX. I’ll therefore try and transplant this to the LX. While the C is disassembled, I’ll also have a look at the film advance wheel – if it’s the same, I’ll replace the damaged one in the LX.

After this, pending success, I’ll need to somehow calibrate the film advance/film spacing functions – but that’s a future problem.

A lot has happened in the last few months!

My beautiful wife gifted me an immaculate chrome LX that looked like it had never been used. After working flawlessly for 5+ rolls of film, the images began to overlap, the film counter stopped incrementing and, finally, the shutter got stuck. In the same week I dropped my B, which resulted in the shutter getting stuck as well. That wasn’t a great week for me.

I’ve since sent both cameras off for repair to MS Hobbies in the UK (a long way from Australia, and an unfavourable exchange rate). Paul has done an excellent job repairing them and has had great communication throughout, all for a very reasonable fee.

In the absence of both cameras though, I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I’ve since added a gold Selection to my collection, and have a C, EC and another B on the way from Germany, as well as a bunch of cassettes (I’m waiting for delivery of these in the next hour or so!). Finally, sensing my disappointment at losing both cameras in one week, my wife gifted me another chrome LX!

Once everything arrives, I’ll be the owner of the following:

• 2 x Minox B (one chrome, one black)
• 1 x Minox C (chrome)
• 2 x Minox LX (chrome)
• 1 x Minox Selection (gold)
• 1 x Minox EC (black)

I’ll be using some of these new cameras (I’m looking at you, B and C) to learn how to disassemble, clean and repair the Minox, using Thomas’ excellent website Moments of Now. Stay tuned!

This is my casual photo dump project – my analogue photo journal. I don’t know much about photography, and even less about editing. Enjoy!
~Alan.