I know I said last week that this new Pathe camera was going to be a future project, but before I could safely put it away, I needed to mitigate as much of the corrosion of the brass parts as possible to prevent any further decay. When I brought the camera over the bench to examine it, I noticed a few things.
First, there is a lot of green corrosion on almost every single brass part on the camera. Fortunately, the vast majority of the steel internal parts are in good condition, with a few exceptions. I cleaned most of the steel internal parts with WD40, and then lubricated them all with a light camera oil. The brass parts were soaked in a solution of distilled vinegar, flour, and salt to clean away the corrosion. Then all of these parts were soaked again in a solution of distilled water and baking soda, then washed once more in distilled water.
More cleanup will be done to all of these parts when I get into the actual restoration process, but this will do for now. The one part I was not able to save was the f-stop witness ring, where the corrosion had already eaten through the enamel coating. Second, I saw that someone had clearly tried to pick this camera up by one of the magazines, and in the process, tore off the wood that holds the light trap on the bottom of that magazine. All of the bits and pieces were still there, so I was able to glue everything back together.
The camera also arrived with this interesting matte box that I had never seen before. It looks homemade to me, and features a cylinder that attaches to the threads on the lens dust cover, and then the body of the matte box slides onto the cylinder. I cleaned that off as well. That is all the work I have time to do on it for right now, so in the meantime, it is sitting in the showroom, waiting its turn.
