Yashica FX-D Quartz given new life.
I’ve always wanted to take on the endeavor of fixing up an abused and forgotten yard sale camera. This poor Yashica was at the bottom of a ratty dirty cardboard box amongst a pile of old Kodak Brownies and Argus 127 cameras, in a random garage sale in Southern Minnesota. At a mere $10, I couldn’t pass the opportunity up to do so; I’d like to share the tedious hard work I placed into it. As a disclosure to anyone looking invest into restoring a camera, scraping old light seals out will ultimately test your patience and you can never have enough Isopropyl Alcohol. I can’t wait to share my first roll of film through it eventually.
I don’t know why, but I’m way more excited about this camera, than buying one from a store in pristine condition. Maybe it’s the reward of tediously putting careful attention and work into a piece that becomes your own piece than just grabbing it from a store shelf or dealer. It had corroded battery contacts that needed re-soldering and a lot of burnishing to make it usable again, the obvious leather degradation which this model is famous for, and non-existent light seals that had turned to a black sticky goop.
Little did I know, that the Yashica lens line shares it’s mount with Contax, and has some great Zeis glass in it’s lineup. Lots of eBay searches finally yielded a bargain priced lens. The leatherette, light seals, and the 28mm F2.8 were a mere $35 dollar investment bringing the total to $45.
Has anyone else here on the forums, taken on the challenge of bringing new life and purpose to old beat up cameras? Feel free to share your projects as well! Bonus pic, of my two upcoming David and Goliath film camera threads as well.
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Amazing work! I didn't realize you could just buy those leather wraps. I wrapped an old K1000 SE in cloth to replace it's worn leatherette. Doesn't look as professional as yours.
The most I've done is small repairs. My Pentax MX came with a sticky shutter - that wasn't too bad. Worn light seals - haven't replaced those yet but shouldn't be too bad. And a dirty focusing screen - easy to remove and clean. It also has a non-working light mirror, but none of the DIY solutions I've found online have fixed it yet.
Excited about your david and goliath thread. Those both are great looking cameras 🙂
I got the leathers from a site called HugoStudio, along with the light seals. He laser cuts leather and whatever material and color you could think of.
Bummed that you can't get the mirror working. I've definitely learned a new found respect to those who work on old film SLRs for a living. The hardest part of doing the light seals for me, was keeping them from twisting while laying them in.
My dad gave me one of his co-workers old Minolta X700 as well, which came with some fantastic glass. It's currently about to undergo a capacitor replacement, they're swolen and leaked rendering the shutter dead.
I've been on a film gear GAS bender, my girlfriend rolls her eyes and scolds me if I show up with a new lens or camera now days.
Nice job! My grandmother gave me her Pentax P30t that is not working. For a while it has just been a decoration around the house, but I may take a shot at repairing it. Thanks for the inspiration!
