In downtown Bucharest is the workshop of a reputable local camera repair technician named Gabriel Cringloska. His official web page is at Professional Service Srl ? Reparatii si Reconditionari Camere Foto, and while it doesn't present a portfolio or instill a lot of confidence, at least it contains the basic contact information. Recently, after a casual talk, I learned that he also accepts mail-in cameras, which is the reason why I'm mentioning this here.
In parallel with the KM that I sent to Igor Silva (described right above), I gave Gabriel Cringloska an Asahi Pentax K1000 (Hong Kong made). I had purchased this camera for cheap in "as-is" condition, and while it was cosmetically nice, it had a mirror that sometimes refused to return, issue which could be observed regardless of shutter speed. So I'd never used this camera. Attached to that K1000 was a lens whose aperture blades were stuck wide open when I got it. I opened up that lens and the blades were stuck because they were *rusted* - just to give you an idea of the storage conditions of the thing. First I sent this K1000 for a CLA to a local nonprofessional/hobbyist whom I met on the "Learn Camera Repair" Facebook group. This person changed the light seals (in itself a decent job) and cleaned some things here and there, and the "mirror up" problem was gone. But now, after finally being able to at least complete the shutter cycle more than several times in a row, I noticed that there was shutter capping on more than half the width of the frame at 1/500 and 1/1000. I presented this finding to the hobbyist to which I had sent my camera, and he said "oh, I didn't even look at the shutter. But it's simple, you can even do it yourself, here's how to increase the tension on the curtains". Of course, the way I heard this was "run and don't look back!", and this is how I came to Gabriel Cringloska's services.
He was reluctant at first to work on a camera that was previously opened, arguing that it's more economically viable to get another one (little does he know about K1000 prices these days, lol). I managed to convince him that I'm determined to pay the asking price for a proper CLA of the camera, so he finally accepted to work on it. I'm bringing this up because, from discussions with some of his other customers, it seems to be a recurring theme for him to try to convince them that they don't want to pay the asking price (his version is that the customers underestimate the complexity involved, and nobody who offers to do a CLA for a measly price can do a thorough job).
Anyway, in my case the price was the equivalent of EUR 200, and it covered a strip down, cleaning and relubrication of the shutter rollers, springs and shafts, plus a cleaning of the space between the focusing screen and pentaprism and a replacement of that internal foam. The shutter now works perfectly acceptable (by that I just mean that there's no capping, and exposures are ok with negative film, I haven't done measurements with a shutter tester nor do I particularly care). For the viewfinder cleaning, actually he warned me that it takes a lot of his time to remove the old foam, clean the ensuing debris and replace it, and because by design these viewfinders aren't sealed (to allow some ventilation, for the condensation to dry), it's very easy for junk to get back in. I didn't listen, so he had to do that too. In fact, he had to reopen the pentaprism about 5 times, as small black specks kept finding their way back in, just from the air dislodged by the movement of the mirror. In the end he gave up on that and just gave it to me the way it was - with about 5 black specs. Now I wish I had listened.
In fact I noticed that the specs were mobile, so in my wisdom, when I got the camera back, I wondered if it would be possible to move them to the side by lightly tapping the camera against my palm. I did this a few times, and as I was blank-firing the shutter for further tests, at one point the camera completely froze. Mirror up, curtains open, aperture closed. Uh-oh!
I went back with the camera to his shop, and since it was under his 1-year warranty (this was the next day after I took it out from service), he debugged it for 3 more days trying to figure out what went wrong. Under the top cover everything was ok, had to remove the frame counter mechanism, all ok again, then eventually when the mirror box had to be removed, he noticed in a dim corner that there's a metal piece which should't be there. It was the shutter buttom plunger! But.... the camera had a shutter button plunger! Yes, but the one blocking the mechanisms was the original one. His hypothesis was that somebody took apart the camera before, the plunger fell from the top cover as it isn't held by anything, he didn't find it, then he replaced it with one from another camera. Hmm, I wonder who could have done that..
Anyway, after the second trip to his shop, the camera has been working fine (he also made a voluntary extra attempt to get rid of the specs in the viewfinder, which improved the situation somewhat), and I would recommend his services, I consider this to be a bit of a special situation. The price was proportional to the effort involved, and at least he didn't back out leaving me up in the air.
The turnaround time for the K1000 was about 3 weeks, considering that I told him it isn't urgent and he also had some backlog.
I also have an MX that's currently in his shop, but it just needs a minimal intervention to clean the inside of the viewfinder eyepiece, to fix an intermittent electrical contact made by the batteries due to corrosion, and to replace the frame counter with a spare part I had. The estimate for that was around EUR 20.
After the long story, it's probably worth mentioning that I'm not affiliated with him in any way, this is just the review of a satisfied customer. I looked over his shoulder on his computer where he keeps the database of repairs he's done, and among Pentax cameras there were all sorts, from Spotmatics, SV, K1000, MX, ME Super. I can't speak for the complexity of other repairs.
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