mushy muscle

[Chetley]

I bought a cheap Super 8 Camera the other day to play around with but the eye muscle is deteriorating badly. The muscle is sticky to touch and the rubber is kind of messy. Is there a way to harden the rubber up to bring it back to normal or can i just take it off without harming the camera?

[BolexPlusx]

Lemme Guess!

It's a GAF or a Chinon, right?

I've had a couple of GAF (Made by Chinon) ST-602s over the years and the worst thing about them is that the rubber eyecup deteriorates to tarry goo. To my knowledge this is unstoppable, but if it's the camera I'm thinking about the eyecup is not hard to replace, and I know several places to get substitutions for it.

I was using one of them a couple of weeks ago without knowing that this one too has the problem, when my wife aked me "What's that black mark on your face?".

[Andrew Kempees]

I had the same exact problem with two of my high end cameras. What I did was to replace them with BOLEX eye cups. They are of a very nice gray rubber. Thay cost a bit, but it was better than a black eye.

[cameraguy]

Originally posted by BolexPlusx:
but if it's the camera I'm thinking about the eyecup is not hard to replace, and I know several places to get substitutions for it.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Any of them online?

[BolexPlusx]

Yes, It turns out my fix was the same as Andrew's: I removed the decayed eyecup and replaced it with a Bolex equivalent.

I got mine from Chambless:

http://www.chamblesscineequip.com/Default.htm

I bought a used one pretty cheap off a scrap camera they had in the store. They also have new ones there.

An alternative is these urethane Bolex eyecups:

http://members.fortunecity.com/sazeech/eyecup.htm

I decided on the used one from Chambless because I thought the white urethane one would look kind of funky on the back of my camera, but to each their own! (Besides, the urethane ones are good for people who are allergic to rubber, but I'm not!)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 01, 2004 11:12 PM: Message edited by: BolexPlusx ]</font>

[cameraguy]

Originally posted by BolexPlusx:

An alternative is these urethane Bolex eyecups:

http://members.fortunecity.com/sazeech/eyecup.htm

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I found these to be complete junk. I bought a couple and they were next to impossible to put on a Bolex H8. He told me you needed to use big strong thumbs with good force, so I got the best grip I could and presto the eyecup ripped in half. Plus these things reeked something awful, seriuosly I wouldn't put my eye on them even if I did get it on. Tossed the other one in the trash and did my best to forget ever buying them.

[Chetley]

Hey BolexPlusx,

Good guess, it is a GAF ST 500. It is too bad that the eye piece is so bad.

Thanks everyone for giving me your advice. I might try ordering a Bolex piece.

[BolexPlusx]

Originally posted by cameraguy:
I found these to be complete junk. I bought a couple and they were next to impossible to put on a Bolex H8. He told me you needed to use big strong thumbs with good force, so I got the best grip I could and presto the eyecup ripped in half. Plus these things reeked something awful, seriuosly I wouldn't put my eye on them even if I did get it on. Tossed the other one in the trash and did my best to forget ever buying them.[/QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The force to put them on wouldn't actually be an issue on the GAF application, because the eyecup is held on by a flange that threads onto the viewfinder. The fact that they stink, well that's another matter entirely!

(I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time!!)