The crustiest, nastiest, rustiest Junghans stop clock arrived a few days ago, even worse than the last grey one. This one is just about saveable, the mechanics are in ok shape, and have been serviced and work perfectly. It is missing all three control knobs and the case is well out of whack.

Received a couple of Smiths Timers in the post today, one was really, really clean with some battle scars accrued over its 40+ years of service, It cleaned up well & has been given a light re-lubrication, and has been running for 24 hours without issue & has joined its brethren on a shelf ready for ebay.

The other one is however a different story, whilst there was some evidence of staining on the clock face, the inner horrors were not revealed until the case was opened and the mech removed, therein lay the first issue, the screws were rusted solid, not a good start. Drilled out the screws to remove the mech, which I have subsequently replaced with Metric Stainless Steel, then into the mechanism itself. Firstly a bath in IPA and then blown dry with canned air. The crud that came out was unreal, re-lubricated with #40 clock oil and set running.

Seeing as I was going to the firm that I use for powder coating my RRB masking frames, I thought I might rejuvenate one of my Smiths timers as well. After a brief conversation about what colour I should go for, they suggested a colour called “Luminous Yellow” which although isn’t actually luminous, really is very yellow. So I went for it, I also ordered some luminous paint for the hands, and today i picked up the case for the timer.

Picked up some equipment today.. included amongst it was an RR Beard 20×16 easel and an Ilford SL1. The RRB needs some TLC, the arms are bent & flaking paint, with a little corrosion. I have straightened the arms and will have them acid dipped & powder coated, the chrome & rusted steel screws have been replaced with Stainless Steel. The Ilford safelight will join the other one in my darkroom.

Seeing as I have dived back in to shooting film for some personal projects and I have set up a darkroom, I am also scanning the negatives for online use…. although using a Canon EOS 5DS for online maybe a little over kill….

I have acquired a number of these old Smiths darkroom timers over the past year or so, mostly for free & the most expensive one was £12 plus postage. All of them worked, to varying degrees, all needed deep cleaning & some required the plastic clock front machine polished to remove scratches and chemical stains.

Some required a chemical dip to remove years of grime, and all of them required a re-lubrication of the mechanicals to get them to run for more than a few seconds. Fortunately these clocks are quite simple and dismantling cleaning and lubrication only takes half an hour, the cleaning of the cases usually takes considerably longer. Some have even required the application of wet & dry. My aim is not to make these like new, I prefer them to wear their battle scars earned through years of use. Even the newest ones of these are over 40 years old.

Negative scanned with a Canon D5S, looks clean enough. Went to wet print it, there were issues, the spots on the lightbox/condenser had returned. A quick clean with lighter petrol and good to go. It seems that the contamination reappears, so will have to investigate where it is coming from, seems strange that it is on a downwards facing part, that is nowhere near anything that is lubricated.