Saturday, July 30, 2011

A gift from the other side of the big pond

A gift from the other side of the Pond

My friend Harry, from Tennessee, found this gem on a garage sale and decided to offer it to me. 
The picture above was taken when it arrived.

Harry hadn't opened the enclosure but, he saw the white dust in the camera inside and decided to add another Instamatic 104 to substitute the one, eventually, damaged by the batteries acid.

I made some research and found an article on Popular Mechanics, June 1969, about water tight enclosures for Instamatic cameras, where this is mentioned and depicted as being a Dacor product.
This being said, we can nail it's production on late 1960's.

So this is a Dacor waterproof enclosure for a kodak Instamatic 104, probably it'll fit other Instamatic cameras of the same vintage.
The flashcube contraption is marked Ikelite, in the Popular Mechanics article it's pictured with a bulb flash.

Next step was to make a record of the initial state, that was quite good as you can see in the next shots:

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DSC_9779           DSC_9784
DSC_9782           DSC_9783

DSC_9785

DSC_9787          DSC_9786

DSC_9788         DSC_9789

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Next came the scrubbing, under the kitchen tap using dish washing liquid and a sponge. 
Polished the metal parts, and got new terminals to the flash connectors.

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DSC_9873

Then reassemble it:

DSC_9875         DSC_9877

DSC_9878        DSC_9889

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DSC_9892         DSC_9893

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DSC_9895     DSC_9897

DSC_9898

Kodak Instamatic 104 in Dacor UW enclosure 

So here it is ready to use, or not yet, first I have to test it's water tightness, if it passes the test I have to hurdle some flash cubes and try one of my very, very expired Konica 126 cassettes.

Once again, thank you Harry.

Stay tuned (o;

3 comments:

  1. Bravo my friend! you have done a fantastic job of bringing the housing back to it'd former glory. Looking forward to seeing some photographs taken with the unit.
    Your Friend From Across The Pond In Tenneesse, USA
    Harry

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