Olympus 35 Rc fix help

Jiffy

Jiffy

Suspended / Banned
Messages
303
Name
Graham
Edit My Images
No
Hi guys. My apologies if this is in the wrong place but I have my grandfathers old Olympus 35 RC. It needs some tlc and a few things to bring it up to modern standards. I need to change the battery system to use batteries that are actually available. I also need to check and possibly fix the light seals. And I'd love to buy some nice leather to give it a unique look too.
Can anyone recommend places or people who can help please?

Thanks in advance,

Graham.
 
My (unmodified) Olympus 35RC now takes Duracell 675 hearing aid batteries. The mod I made was a very small amount of Blu tack rolled into a very thin sausage around the inner rim of the battery cover. The battery then sits in the centre of the cover (and the blu tack sausage) and is easily screwed on (and held in place). Watch out for any muck on the inside of the battery cover as the battery has to have a clean contact with the cover as well as the internal springy bit of metal. So no blu-tack underneath the battery as that prevents contact.

The resulting camera under-exposes a bit (which is fine here in the UK) and when I set the meter to 400, I develop for 800. Don't know whether that's the battery change or the state of the lightmeter. Your mileage may very well vary.
 
Last edited:
Edit to add, @stevelmx5 helped me with some tips when I refurbed mine as he's done this before. Some more info on this thread as well as the original 35mmc article by Steve here.
 
Hearing aid batteries are sometimes Zinc/Air types so don't last that long in use. Mine are 1.45V rather than 1.5V which might make a little difference.
 
I've used aki-asahi in Japan for light seal kits for my OMs - despite the dire warnings on their website about Covid related postage delays delivery was very quick. They have a light seal kit listed for the 35RC but whilst they also do some leather kits the 35RC isn't shown.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top