Hass 500C Mirror Pad Replacement Question

<p>Before posting this question, I did my due diligence in research to avoid questions asked and answered repeatedly. I'm wanting to undertake the replacement of the 3 little round foam pads underneath the mirror on several 500 series cameras I have. The mirror is held in by little tangs protruding from the metal frame which are simply bent around the edge of the sandwich towards the lower plate. It appears there are 4 tangs, 2 at the foot, and 2 up at the hinge. Not wanting to disassemble the camera, to get to all 4, is it enough to bend just the lower 2 to allow the mirror to slip out from the front to get to these old pads? And what are the chances one or both tangs, now 40-50 years old will simply break upon bending? Thank you.</p>

<p>Henry,<br>

<br />A former technician (Dick Werner) wrote a series of repair manuals awhile back. Not sure if its still available anywhere.<br>

My suggestion would be to contact David Odess and have him go over your equipment to check for other things that might require a good CLA that you might not be aware of it while replacing the pads. In the event that you should accidentally break anything, most repair shops tend not to touch the equipment if it was tampered with. Probably not the answer you wanted to heard.</p>

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<p>Thank you Evan. I'm not looking for recommendations of service people. I already know all about all of them. With close to a dozen Hass bodies lying around here, it would be quite impossible to send each out for service. I've chosen an experimental body, and am looking for best advice on how to proceed with the things I have in mind.</p>

<p>Henry,<br>

You have the motivation, you just need to go for it. When things go wrong, and they will, that is when you will learn the most. As you already know sometimes the seemingly simplest operations become a problem until you work out the best way to do it, then it is easy. Most repair guys have climbed the same learning curve as you are now looking at, they could tell you how to do it but that won't help you learn.<br>

My advice is the same as before, practice on something you can afford to screw up.</p>

<p>Thank you Douglas. But I'm here asking because I would very much like to reduce all this "learning" I have to go through. All I want to do is bend up the 2 lower tangs to allow enough separation of the mirror sandwich to slip the mirror out. It only takes common sense to figure that if it can be done, you wouldn't want to open a wide enough gap to cause the 2 upper tangs to bend upwards, lest you'd never get all 4 tight again. Then you'd have to take the whole dadburn camera apart. I guess if one or both tangs just break off, I'll have to come up with a glue idea of some kind, but would really like to avoid that.<br /> As a side note--based on the nearly dozen of these old C's CM, EL, ELM I have laying around, there isn't a single one out there in the world that doesn't have this problem. People buy these things on EBAY by the thousands, and none of them are any good. But they don't know that. If they did, they'd buy Brownie box cameras and get sharpness just as good.</p>

<p>You know something? I think it's a dumb-a@@ question I asked .Even if I could get the mirror sandwich apart at the front, how am I going to get the mirror to come out the hole in the front? Dumb idea. Looks like the only way is to get out my dial caliper and mike the body length all the way around and take off the entire front panel. I've done it on an ELM and gotten it back together right. I don't think I'm going to like any part of this chore. Might be best to take off the inner chassis back panel. Probably the way it's supposed to be done in the first place. Damn Hasselblad for putting that blasted foam in there. They ought to be horsewhipped.</p>

Henry,

I cannot encourage you to take shortcuts and not learn how the camera works. I get it that you don't want high repair bills

but there is no way that anyone can give advice in this forum that can guarantee a way for you to fix simple faults without

any risk whatsoever.

For the record the replacement of mirror pads and a recalibration of the camera body to factory specifications using

factory tools is something I do regularly and usually charge 40GBP, approx $66.

I do encourage anyone who wants to know more about these cameras do so, if you want to know how to repair them you

can take the time to learn how they work and are assembled or you could opt to go to the factory and enrolled on a

training course if they offer it. I think you might want the first one.

I want you to succeed in what you are trying to do and not put you off the idea, you have to do the work.

<p>Thank you. I've checked out the Dick Werner site, but not sure how thorough his stuff is on body reassembly. At any rate, I've come to the mind that The back chassis panel assembly needs to be removed to do this. The Hass 503 manual online explains that well enough, but these cameras are C's and CM's without the sliding mirror. I wouldn't think unhooking the linkage would be the same. Looks easy enough in the 503 manual, but that's not much help here. Certainly there are timing issues at play on reassembly. As far as miking the body back together, I can handle that. I have a "sacrificial body" here, but really like not sacrificing even the "sacrificial" ones. They don't make'em any more. Every one that is sacrificed is one less in the world.</p>

<p>Well well well--looky what we have here. The pads underneath this Hasselblad C junker are totally deteriorated, just as I suspected. Here's what I did: I wound the chassis and tripped the round wire underneath the flat chrome shutter trip. This made the mirror flip up and the barn doors open, and extended the barn door elbow joints so I could unhook the springs. That way the elbow joints could slip out of their little eyelets. Then I unscrewed the 8 screws holding on the back panel ( the ones on the side with all the works were a bit tough to get at). Then I pulled the back panel away from the camera, which slipped the mirror peg out of its drive linkage and the chassis rear panel came away with its mirror and barn doors like a dream. Then I bent the 2 front mirror tangs up, and was able to slip out the mirror. And I saw the place where 3 little pads once were, and they were long turned to dust.<br /> I don't have any Hass-approved ones, so I'm going to fabricate some out of model railroad track pads. The pads the model railroaders used seem to be a plastic foam, rather than conventional foam rubber. I think this material probably lasts a lot longer. Looks like some trial-and-error is in front of me to find the right thickness to slice my material. But I've re-foamed enough cameras to get the job pretty near right. When this is over, I expect the camera to focus correctly, which is more than can be said for 99.9% of Hasselblads on EBAY. We'll see.</p>

<p>I have a similar problem, foam pads are deteriorated.<br>

Does anyone know where I can send my 500CM for repair, as near as possible to Croatia EU?<br>

Slovenia would be the best choice if there are any repair shops for Hasselblad.<br>

Thanks</p>