opening a Karat

I have an Agfa Karat 12 I bought from the great eScam in perfect optical and

mechanical condition. Needless to say... after an inspection, I wouldn't agree

with that, especially the mechanical part.

 

I need to unmount the lens and repair the diaphgram. While accessing the

shutter is reasonable, I can't access the diaphgram since I can't *remove* the

shutter from the from the lens board, the problem being the long level with a

riveted (or screwed in from the bottom) guide. This lever goes stright into the

rangefinder and I removed that too, hoping to open it from the inside, but no

avail. Anyone has experience with this?

 

Supposing I'll be able to restore this small jewel to a usable state.. some

questions to the agfa-experts: I found it difficult to date the camera. Reading

on the net, I found its production period was pretty long: 1941-1948. Mine has

the 1/300" compur shutter and it is NOT marked Made in Germany, it has the Agfa-

Rhombus engraved on top though. Interesting is also the lens: The Karat-Xenar

is nuber 799985 which marks it as produced in the thirties! But pre-war karats

had different, slower optics. Did Agfa buy a large stock and was able to

manufacture the camera only later? Nice mysteries!

 

 

Last but not least: how are your experiences with Karat magazines? Someone says

you can reuse standard 35mm magazines... Since there are people who swear on

the Karat like other swear on the retina... I was wondering if only the latest

versions can be used. My front element might be not pristine, but if I repair

the rest and clean everything up it would be usable, provided I can cram some

film in it!

Hi, Riccardo The Karat 12 you've got is what Karataholics consider to be the "watershed" model, in that it was the first one with both new body shape yet still using the original Karat Rapid Kassette. There are two variants - the 1941-3 model, with a flat top cover, and the second one that's similar apart from the accessory shoe, which McK's has as 1947-50 but I disagree slightly here. I have a post-war one complete with IB dated Sep 1945, and it still has the flat cover with no shoe. It's only a minor thing but I reckon AGFA continued nach-krieg with the original model specs before the accessory shoe appeared.

 

Neither model can be used with Kodak-style 35mm cassettes. Not only are they of different dimensions, the two systems are like chalk and cheese. Basically, Karat/Rapid pushes, while Kodak pulls. That's why there's no rewind system on Karat 12's, because the film has been entirely pushed into the "collector" kassette. All you do is open the back, remove the "collector" kassette and move the empty "donor" kassette across from left to right. Sounds complicated, but you've got the camera and can see what I mean.

 

The negative aspect about the Karat/Rapid system was that it only came with 12 frames, reason being friction problems caused the film to bind or buckle if you tried more. The plus aspect was just how quickly you could change films, without having to rewind! However, bear in mind that the film itself is no different - it's standard perforated cine/kine 35mm film that both use. So, if you have an empty Karat/Rapid Kassette, it can be filled with an appropriate 18" length of film from a modern Kodak-style 35mm cassette or wherever. Just don't go past the length for 12 frames, and remember that it's freely coiled with no secured ends.

 

Lastly, you're dead right about the anomaly of the f2.8 Schneider Xenar serial numbers for these cameras. I've got two and both have similar numbers to yours, which all the good sources date to around 1936/37. Why such early lenses on newer cameras? I don't know. Maybe it's because AGFA had bought a stockpile of older Xenars from Schneider around 1941 for the first Karat 12's, and still had enough remaining nacht-kreigs for the second versions.

 

Interestingly, I have all sorts of cameras with Schneider lenses, both pre and post WW2, and this is the only instance where their usually logical chronological numbering doesn't apply. Go figure, eh?

 

The usual source I direct folks to regarding Karats is Jurgen Nau's excellent website, which used to be at "www.die-karat.de" Unfortunately, it seems to have changed into a photo-pic site these days, which is a shame. Good luck, anyway ........

Indeed, my model has no accessory show and the "old" shutter, so it could be indeed a war model. I can't find a real serial number. Inside the body at the bottom of the film gate I find M 738.

 

I find the film reminder pretty nifty :)

 

Juergen Nau evidently got digitalitis! so sad...

 

I want to repair my little brick of metal here.. THe rangefinder is interesting and I want to check how accurate and how it uses... but I must be able to unmount the lens to check the diaphgram blades.

Hey,Riccardo!

Perer is a professor in Karats!

Hi, Riccardo (& Dimitry) Removing the Xenar's front element is quite simple - it just unscrews via the chromed knurled ring right at the front, unveiling the diaphragm blades. However, unscrewing anything on old AGFAs can prove more difficult than it should, courtesy of their dreaded green grease/glue.

 

You might get lucky and find yours unscrews by hand, without any need for prior softening up of recalcritrant threads with naptha, lighter fluid, CRC electronic cleaner or whatever. If you have to go this route though, do not use anything remotely oily or it will precipitate onto the interior glass surfaces. What you need is something that totally evaporates, OK?

 

Just to show what a lottery it is with AGFA threads, the front elements of one of my Karat 2.8s unscrewed easily by hand. I'm looking at it right now as I type this. The other one is still there, stuck firmly. Luckily that camera is still working fine, so I'm not going to try anything heavy on it until necessary.

 

On body serial numbers, you're right, mate - that "M - ***" under the film window is it. My two are "N - 715" and "V - 722", which leads me on to admitting total confusion regarding dating AGFAs by body s/no. Undoubtedly there IS a code, and more likely it's via the prefixed letter rather than the number. However, despite owning AGFAs as far back as Standards from the late 20s right up to Optimas from the early 60s, I ain't cracked it yet. Dan Brown, where are you?

 

When you've unscrewed the Xenar's front element section, give the interior concave part a gentle clean. Once you've got the shutter working, open it at "B" at f2.8 and give the interior of the rear elements a similar clean. In my experience, any glass surfaces close to mechanical gizmos that whirr and click eventually tend to acquire a surface haze, given time. These are 60 years plus old, so they've certainly had that.

 

Riccardo, you may well find that the Xenar looks a hell of a lot better after all this internal foraging. The next stage is feeding it with some film, naturally. As I said in my previous post, refilling an empty Karat/Rapid kassette is not difficult. Good luck, and enjoy the scan of the front cover of my precious Sep 1945 AGFA IB, just to keep you motivated ........

 

Ah, Dimitry, the Professor Of Karatology is undoubtedly Jurgen Nau, but his website has apparently disappeared into cyberspace. If anybody out there in Karatland knows where it might be, PLEASE let us all know! ~~PN~~<div></div>

I would have thought that you would peel it!

Hi Peter! Cool cover. That's my baby :)

Unfortunatley I need something a bit more deep than removing the front element, which did unscrew pretty easily. One of the diaphgram blades is bent or possibly even broken. I want to access the diaphgram mechanism to be able to either reseat the blades or at worst removing one blade.

 

To to this I'd like to remove the whole shutter assembly (the lenses are nto a problem, with some patience I was able to unscrew the back element too, so I have both lenses in my hands) with the focusing ring.

 

The focusing information gets transferred over the bellow struts thanks to a linkage, a cam. I need to loosen this cam "somewhere". On the lens side it is screwed in and has a riveted pin. On the camera side it enters deep inside the rangefinder mechanism. I unmounted it completely but sadly discovered that the lever inside seems to be milled out of one single piece of metal! I continued removing pieces in moral discomford, up to being able to remove the strut assembly partially, the only thing that keeps the camera together is the bellow itself and this damn cam! It seems so strange AGFA didn't think about a convenient way to disassemble it that I more think I don't know what to do than a design error!

 

Otherwise I can ship you a small bag of assorted karat parts, divided in film canisters...

 

If I get thie thing working again, I'll ask about tricks to get the chrome and the alloy to its old shine again, but looks is second to function!

Hi, Riccardo It sounds from your description that your Karat has some serious problems, mate, way past my expertise and fading eyesight. The only time I ever tried to take a diaphragm apart to relocate a slipped leaf, I gave up in disgust and took the box of tricks into the local Repair Guru's workshop for him to work things out. Which he did, but it cost me about $50 from memory!

 

Which leads me on to my next recommendation - why don't you just keep an eye open for another model Karat f2.8 on Fleabuy, and do some cannabilising on both to try and produce one good one? Although these models are relatively rare, when they do come up they don't seem to fetch high prices. Ideally for you, it would be one with a working shutter but relatively poor cosmetics and leatherette - the sort of camera that often fetches only 10 - 15 bucks. At that sort of price, you won't feel guilty about taking it apart either .....

You can always look at archived versions of www.die-karat.de at the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). Dirk Neumann's site (www.karat-kameras.de) is pretty good too.