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MINOX SERVICE - D.A.G.ed!

Originally Published in The Minox Memo
Series 2, Volume 1, Number 1.

Peter Zimmerman
President

Many of the most serious Minox hobbyists, those of us who need to have our Riga Minoxes, or perhaps Minox II cameras with black blades restored, already know Don Goldberg of DAG Camera Repair in McFarland, Wisconsin. Quite simply, Don is the guy who can fix anything Minox, modify anything Minox, and restore the oldest treasures.

Now, all U.S. Minoxers are going to become acquainted with Don's superb abilities to make almost anything "Minox" whole and operating again. Don is taking over the responsibility of being the U.S. authorized Minox repair center from Minox Processing Labs, freeing MPL to concentrate on its core business: making beautiful pictures from Minox subminiature films.

Some time back I was in the Madison, Wisconsin area on business and had a little spare time in my schedule. Fortunately Don did too, and graciously invited me over for a tour of the workshop.

He's a wiry guy, perhaps 5 feet 9 inches, give or take, with a full black beard and long-ish black hair, a bit biblical looking. Enthusiastic in the extreme about his profession, he took the time to show me how several Minox models work under the skin. After deciding to go into camera repair, Don served a two year apprenticeship in the Leitz "Feinmechaniker" program in Wetzlar, and after qualifying as a precision machinist and repairman on Leicas, he moved to Heuchelheim where he studied for several months at the Minox factory. This was in the 1970s.

Spread from one end of a large basement to the other are more than 100 cameras in various stages of repair, waiting to be repaired or on their way out the door to happy owners. Don works on only two breeds of cameras: Minoxes and Leicas, at both of which he is an acknowledged master. [if you need new "Vulcanite" on a Leica or a Leica lens, send it to Don for perfection -- this in addition to mechanical repairs on Leicas.]

The most interesting to me was the treasure trove of parts for Riga Minoxes, and the incredible complexity of the camera compared to modern models. All the parts are hand fitted, beautifully, but perhaps the most unusual part of the construction are the shutter blades themselves. A modern Minox shutter blade is just that, a very thin piece of steel. A Riga-Minox shutter blade comes in two parts: a light weight frame shaped a bit like a capital P, except that the round part of the frame is longer (taller) than it is wide unlike on the letter. A thin groove is milled into the face of the frame, the oblong top of the P. The shutter foil is then carefully placed into the groove and gently patted into place. Then the shutter foil is soldered into the frame! This must, of course, be done for each of the two blades!

Waiting for restoration was a Minox II, or perhaps more accurately a Minox II, model 1, because the filter and shutter blades were changed part way through the production. The older version has black-finished shutter blades (see Heckmann for a description), and the inner surface of the cover plate is blackened, perhaps to improve light absorption. The filter is green and yellow instead of green and orange, the yellow glass being left over from the parts saved from the VEF factory in Riga. My own II is a Minox II, model 2, with shiny blades but a black circle (instead of the modern white circle) to indicate a cocked shutter. The black blades have, of course, a white circle. I didn't actually get to see the black blades on the model 1; that camera's problem was a jammed shutter! I left my Minox II in Don's capable hands to have a CLA and get the viewfinder prism replaced. This was then a $75 job, which I think is pretty darn reasonable considering that the camera is 40 years old. Yes, DAG has parts.

Did you know that the way the Minox C knows the ND filter is in place is because a tiny ND filter slides over the photo cell when the filter slides over the lens? The film speed is set by moving a wedge in front of the cell. The long thin triangle cut into a thin metal strip changes width to allow more or less light to reach the cell. This isn't a surprising or even a novel way to set film speed, but the precision of the tiny parts is remarkable. Well, heck, the precision of all the tiny parts of a Minox is remarkable.

Don held out an "egg crate" compartment box, each cell containing screws, springs, levers, washers, or gears. This and a couple of other similar containers are just about the world supply of Riga Minox spares. I felt a cough coming on and turned away; some of the parts were light enough to have been blown out by one good "hack".

Finally, I looked at the saddest Minox I have ever seen: a brand new TLX purchased at a swap meet for $150. Before you congratulate the owner on a great deal you should know that the camera had been gutted before it was sold.

Although the film chamber could be seen, there was no mechanism under it; no electronics; only a filter and one shutter blade jammed in place in front of where the lens ought to have been.

DAG can rebuild this mess and give its owner a working TLX at, perhaps, a lower cost than it would have commanded at a dealer. It was a good reminder that if the price on anything looks too good to be true, it probably is. Was this camera stolen? Stolen from the factory? What happened to the insides? There aren't many who could benefit from using the guts as 'spare parts'. Your guess is probably better than mine or Don's. (Long after my visit I found out that the unit belonged to a well-known Minoxer and was in fact built as a showroom dummy, not intended to work.)

Did you know that "in extremis" you can strip parts out of a disposable camera with built in flash and use those components to fix the Minox 8x11 electronic flash?

Some of you may remember the "old" Popular Photography magazine, before it became a resurrection of Modern Photography. In those days Pop's camera tests involved a complete strip down and a torture test which really told the reader how well a camera would stand up and perform. The author of those articles was Norman Goldberg -- yes, Don's father.

DAG and I are both believers in the idea that if a cluttered desk indicates a cluttered mind, an empty desk must indicate, well you know. Out of the chaos of DAG's workshop comes some of the best submini and Leica repair work on earth. And in the workshop is yet another one of the really nice people who seem to dominate this hobby!

After an hour I finally reminded him of my promise to get in and get out in half an hour so as not to delay anybody's repairs by too long and to let him get back to his business. For both of us the time had flown by. I left Don's shop to find that the weather had deteriorated badly, and that the Wisconsin winter had struck again. Snow had covered my car, and the roads were about to freeze over. It was rush hour, and I carefully picked my way into Madison to my hotel. Yes, I took a bunch of pictures of DAG, with a Minox of course, and if I can find them in the mess which is my current filing system for Minox photos, one will appear with this column. Artistic shots, no, but a great reminder of my visit.