I have a 203mm Kodak flash supermatic lens/shutter. Shutter is OK, but flash contacts appear to be "dead". There is M/F switch and another lever which can be "cocked" also near M/F switch position. What is it? Does it have anything to do with flash? Is it a self timer? It does not appear to have any effect.

-- joe zarick (jza1058168@aol.com), December 15, 2001

Answers

Old shutters have to give the flash bulbs time to start burning before they open the shutter. When you cock the second lever, it delays the fireing of the shutter blades for however long you have set the M...F setting for, depending on what type of bulb you are using. Some bulbs take longer to achieve full brightness than others. I suggest you make a few trips to garage sales and buy some flash bulbs because your electronic flash will have fired and recharged before the shutter even thinks about opening.

If you take the following advice and it ruins your shutter, I don't know you. However, with mine, I took the lens elements out, took the cover plate off (watch that the little high speed spring thinge doesn't fall out and get lost), and put the whole thing in a ultra- sonic cleaner with lighter fluid. Then mixed some graphite (lock lubracant) with lighter fluid (spairingly) and soaked the whole thing. After it dried, I blew out the excess graphfite dust and had a good as new shutter.

-- Neal Shields (Shields@ftw.com), December 15, 2001.

Apparently you have an older 203. The M stands for M class flash bulbs. The F stands for F class (focal plane) flash bulbs. Some of the newer 203s are in Suppermatic (X) shutters, the X stands for electronic flash. Hope this helps. Ken

-- Ken Woodard (klwoodard1@home.com), December 19, 2001.