Mamiya 645: Sticking Film Counter and Light Seal Replacement
Originally posted on Instagram. Notes from the repair bench, kept here as a searchable archive. View the original on Instagram
Fixing the typical issues with the Mamiya 645: sticking film counter and replacing light seals.
A sticking film counter will not always go back to zero and when that happens and you load film, the counter will start at a number greater than zero and you will get frames cut off from the roll. I’d recommend checking your counter on these models, easiest way is to turn the silver counter gear in the film compartment (shown in the second photo) clockwise and will turn the film counter. Letting go of the gear should cause the counter to snap back to zero. If it returns slowly or not at all then you have a potential problem.
The typical light leak on the 645 is caused by the large light seal being damaged by the door hinge. With light seals, they are either sticky or dried out. In this case (as seen in photo three), all the light seals were quite desiccated and needed replacing.
