Wow, from our friends at Hackaday, who would have thought the time would come when you could downland and print a camera. Even the shutter.
A nice read for those interested in photography and some good links to follow regarding the build. Don’t think I’ll be starting one as I’ve only just mastered the standard paper printer 😂
A couple of years ago we were excited to read news of an entirely 3D printed camera, right down to the shutter. We wrote it up back then but sadly …
I recently purchased this camera and wrote about it in a previous blog entry Werra 1
I’ve commenced taking the Werra to pieces. The winder was not working and the shutter was not firing. Before starting this work I’ve viewed this page at Everything Vintage where they have recently carried out a full strip down of the Werra and you can view the page HERE, it’s all great advice.
Getting below the top plate was relatively easy exposing the mechanics from 58 years ago, I don’t think it’s ever been opened in all this time. I always love to see the ingenuity that went into these old cameras in years gone by.
Werra 1 stripdown
The internals look dirty in the photo but to be truthful I don’t think the lighting is doing it any justice, yep there is a fine oxidation coating but it’s at a very acceptable level considering its age. When I get to the point of dismantling as much as I can, I will start to clean and lubricate these pieces. But at the moment my goal is getting to the shutter.
Werra winding system – shutter not working
In the video above I’ve managed to get the shutter cocking using the lens ring, however the shutter actuator does work intermittently, but there is no movement of the shutter (Or is there…)
The only reason I ask the question above is that after reading the “Everything Vintage” link in the first paragraph it appears there is a second shutter that closes the light path to the film back when you wind on. When you are ready to expose the film this shutter opens and then there is a second shutter that controls the exposure. if you watch the small video above I think it is this shutter you can hear when I wind the camera on. Hopefully this one is working, I just need to get the one on the rear working, and for this I need to remove the lens from the housing. To do this I need a tool I don’t currently have but have now ordered. More to follow when the lens ring removal tool arrives.
Lens ring spanner
The lens ring spanner has arrived, the ring is being right stubborn at the moment and Im struggling to release it from its 58 years of rigidity. I’m tired as well and don’t want to cause any damage to the shutter so I’ll come back to this later.
18 hrs later, I’m rested and have another go at releasing that lens ring, this time I’m successful and I manage to release it. Sometimes it’s better to sleep on a problem and approach it with fresh eyes rather than continuing whilst tired and prone to making mistakes.
Werra Lens ring removed
With the lens off the body, the shutter cassette can now be removed. It amazes me just how intricate this cassette is and the workmanship that must have gone into it. I’d estimate at least 10 small cogs and a number of tiny springs with levers and pivot points, amazing really considering it’s about 60 years old. It’s amazing how modern technology has advanced.
Werra lens breakdownWerra shutter moduleWerra lens – another shutter on the rear
It takes some time getting into the shutter cassette as there are springs and things flying off everywhere, you really do have to photograph everything you do just to be able to check what goes where and how.
Inside mechanism – where is that spring from?Complexity of the shutter mechanism
The shutter itself is rather clean apart from some fingerprints on the shutter leaves that must have been from years ago. I have cleaned this down with IPA and then used some finely ground carbon (pencil lead) as a dry lubricant and this has got the shutter moving just fine.
Werra shutter after being lubricated with carbon
I’m now starting to reassemble the lens and shutter as I’m happy that there is nothing else restricting the shutter and it is now moving quite freely. I will clean the camera as I progress and put some watch lubricant on the mechanics that are external to the lens and shutter assembly.
Werra 1 rearWerra 1 baseWerra 1 topWerra 1 front
Well it’s all been reassembled and is now back in one piece. It looks good, the shutter works fine and I’ve now vacuum packed it to go back into storage. I won’t be firing up a roll of film on it yet as I don’t have the time to did so at the moment. I’ll probably save that until the summertime when the weather is more favourable. I’ve really enjoyed this restoration even though at times it was very frustrating. This rebuild has taught me patience, or at least that I need to have more patience and just take my time. Intricate jobs on such old equipment need a clear head and a lot of concentration. I’ve learned my lesson and will endeavour to remedy that situation in my future dealings with such equipment.
When my parents were at my current age it would have been 1986. They were probably doing their best to just get by, and they both had multiple jobs. I remember a few details from this period as there were some significant goings on around this time.
My mother would have been a shop worker in a local store as well as a cleaner at the company i worked for. I would have been in the photographic industry about four years at this time, i would have had a darkroom in the spare bedroom and would have probably been on my third computer at this point. I’d have ditched the Sinclair ZX81 and the Commodore Vic 20 and I’d probably be trying to master the Amstrad CPC464. I loved the start of the computer era, as did a lot of my friends at the time.
I had my first SLR camera around this time and that would have probably been a Praktika. I was saving as much as i could, to try and purchase my all time favourite camera at the time, and in fact it is still my favourite of all time to this very day. A jet black Canon A1.
I know that i was heavily into photography at This time, as i took one of the most iconic photos i have ever taken in my family history, of my father. I have it to this day. He was leaning on a coal bunker in the garden, it was a beautiful sunny day and i took it, and processed the film and enlarged the photos in my little darkroom in the spare bedroom, on a Gnome enlarger. It was a black and white photo and it represented a turning point in all of our lives.
He had just had a heart attack, and he suffered a deep immersive depression that he never really came out of. Please don’t misunderstand me he lived for another 21 years with no other medical issues, however he had changed and became highly abusive to my mum, my little sister and me. He was heavily into alcohol at this stage, and we were paying the price. I had to grow up quick as i became the protector of my Mother and sister, it was hard and i was not prepared. We were the only ones at home at the time as my two elder brothers and elder sister had all left at that point, and boy how we suffered big time. Our lives were changed the very day his heart attack occurred.
He was a very good electrician, he had been an aircraft electrician but was now working for a local building company, he was also a part time baker.
In the next few years my mother would lose all her brothers and sisters as time took its toll. Father would lose his mother and sister and the family began to dwindle in size.
But thats enough of the bad as its all in the past and though i never forget what happened, i have to move on with my own life for purposes of maintaining sanity.
I loved the 80”s as the world was opening up and starting to develop technologically, however i do believe the older generations did struggle. It’s strange really as it is a mirror image for us older generations today, with some of the things that are going on around us currently. Perhaps all generations have their own Groundhog Day periods.
Here are some points of interest that also occurred back in 1986
Plans were announced between the UK and France to build the channel tunnel
The space shuttle Challenger exploded just after its launch
Halley’s Comet makes a show
The Soviet Mir space station is launched
Microsoft goes on the stock market
The Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes
Argentina wins the World Cup
The M25 motorway – The UK’s biggest car park opens officially
A lot happened that year and these are just a small selection of them. However the dynamics of my family changed that year and what occurred from that point on will never be forgotten . WordPress really couldn’t have chosen a worse time line to talk about for me than this one I’m afraid, but then, it’s good to get it out there.
However, time moves on, wounds heal and we all learn. This is why it is important that we don’t erase our past, otherwise how will we ever learn to be better people and treat others with the mutual respect and belonging they all so rightly deserve.
Loved this post regarding the reuse and repurposing of old cameras. I know its social media based, but you can’t have it all your own way. I’ve got about 70 candidates that could quite easily be adapted for this purpose…
Social media microblogging has brought us many annoying things, but some of the good things that have come to us through its seductive scrolling are …
This was another iPad piece I did in 2023. I was experimenting with a new art app at the time and just produced this mess that I titled “Firework night”
Another iPad painting from 2012 when I must have been losing it. I just thought it would be good to do a play on words with “Sunspot” hence the Sun was drawn with a pimple on the surface.
This picture was painted on an iPad. I did this one back in 2012, I’d just received notification that my pension pot with Kodak had almost halved due to them declaring bankruptcy and moving production back to the USA. Sod everyone else who worked for them worldwide.
We lost out big time and that’s why I had a rant in this obscure painting I did at the time.
I read this post from Hackaday. I thought you might like it, as it rang true to me because i was working for Kodak at the time of its inception. I was producing graphics art film at their factory in Harrow just outside of London. In my eyes the company went downhill from this point, as they became totally engrossed in the dying traditional silver halide process and totally ignored the advance to digital that floored them in in the late 90s early 2000s – I was made redundant as a result of their “ignorance”.
Having a penchant for cheap second-hand cameras can lead to all manner of interesting equipment. You never know what the next second-hand store will …
I thought maybe that I’d answered this question in the past. But a quick search though my history confirms that is not so. I have spoken about them many times in the past (as well as our dogs that are always my very favourite domesticated animal) so my favourite wild non domesticated animal would have to be the humble little hedgehog.
Hedgehog in our garden
I have to make people understand that we do not yet live in a countrified part of the East Midlands, it’s very much the opposite. We live on the Far Eastern edge of the city, ten minutes east and we are in a more rural setting, but then ten minutes in the other direction and we are in the centre of a decaying lawless city that has seen better days. And we have hedgehogs visit on a regular basis, they are urban city dwellers and that is unusual.
We’ve lived in this house for around seven years now and I was always aware from the start that there was something out there at night snuffling around. You could always hear their presence and installing cameras around the house confirmed it, we had hedgehog visitors. We also had them in our previous house down in Hertfordshire so they were very much a welcome visitor.
Another smaller visitor
My garden has been a constant challenge to get right, it is North facing, it is extremely cold in the winter months and has developed over the years into a wonderful little haven for these guys with lots of perennial cover and wildflowers for their delectation. Yes it’s fair to say that when the garden was designed they formed a big part of the consideration as to how it was laid out.
We have hedgehog highways that allow easy access throughout our garden into neighbouring gardens, we have ramps to allow them up the paving as well as small water features around the garden that allow access to water. We also leave cat biscuits out every night to give them extra feed, because as you may well know their natural food sources are dwindling due to decline of wilded environments, yes, another animal the good old human being is killing off probably unbeknownst due to ignorance.
Hedgehog highway signs around the garden. I know they can read but it shows the way to human visitors
It is estimated that in the UK there are less than two million of these animals in existence. They are high on the endangered species list here, considering back in the 1970’s there were estimated to be in excess of twenty million in existence, that’s a decline of almost eighteen million in fifty years. Horrendous.
This is why I try to help and educate people of this animal. It is wonderful when we have guests, that I know we can all sit in our conservatory and at pretty much the same time, they can sit and watch our prickly friends come to visit and eat. It’s lovely to see and they are always happy to see them. Some have even left here and gone and set up similar environments in their own gardens. That’s a win in my eyes.
I believe we have the same family circle visit our garden as they know they are welcome. At the beginning of the year we have them come in and feed in twos and this year we even had three at the feed station at the same time. As they all get older we have the usual territorial huffing and puffing and only one at a time, but they can all be identified due to their differing sizes and attitudes. It really is wonderful.
Three at the feed station
I love these little creatures, I love all wildlife but these guys are different as they need a helping hand. And that’s the very least I or you can do. It’s no sacrifice. Be a friend not an enemy. It’s your choice. Just choose well.
Foxes Den 
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