New curtain and rangefinder fix, price?

my M6 classic needs a new curtain (the mp one would be perfect as it doesnt let light pass to

the negative) any idea of what the price migth be at Leica? the same for the rangefinder(it

"jumps" out of place but otherwyse its fine, just needs fixing the screw), price at leica? thank

you.

I'm interested to know how long a shutter curtain last for an m6. I would image that it can easily surpass 500,000 actuations before you even need maintenance, let alone tearing it.

Was this an accidental tear or was it just old age?

Are you in Europe? In the US?

In any case, from my experience, the RF fix is relatively easy and inexpensive: $40 at DAG, in Wisconsin. Now... the curtains can be pricy and drain some $200 or more.

Have you determined that the leak is a curtain problem? Have you considered the light baffles? They may be defective and need replacement (which would be a lot less expensive than the curtains).

Good luck!

Well to throw in my two cents... The fact that there isn't a mirror in the way of the rubberized cloth or silk curtain material with many rangefinder cameras, allows for a pin hole to be possibly cooked through the curtain by the sun if the lens is at infinity and no lens cap was on at that unfortunate time. (It seems that the planets would have to align for this to happen, but I saw it often in my camera repair shop.

A simple and cheap fix if you can locate the pin hole isn't really hazardous to the shutter because the alternative is a complete tear down anyway. Here it is;

Get a hole punch and find a piece of discarded curtain material at a local shop. Get some rubberized contact cement and apply it to the little home made patch. Next press the patch to the affected area (On the lens mount side) carefully pinching it tightly with your fingers. One finger in the film plane area where you load film and the other finger in the "mouth" of the lens mount. Don't smear the cement or be sloppy, make it nice and almost undetectable. A rebalancing of the curtain travel times were in order but you can get by with out it. The CTT's are relatively low velocity by today's standards. I.e. Leica M's slow 16ms vs. an R9 at the lightening speed of 2ms.

Good luck and look closely at both curtains with a high intensity lamp. Gus