Repair: Mamiya Press Light Leak
Do you own a Mamiya Press that looks like this?
Then there's a good chance that if you've used it, you've noticed a light leak that looks like this:
The cause is a bit of foam in the lens release lever degrading causing the light trap to fail. It seems to be common amoung all the Press bodies I've seen and luckily it is easy to fix and I'll walk through how here.
The first step is to remove the four pieces of leatherette that surround the lens mount. Beneath each you will find two brass flat head screws under a half moon of brash sheet metal.
Remove all the screws and the front of the camera can be removed. Note that in the ones I've worked with the front is stuck pretty tight and needs some muscle to come free.
Once removed you can inspect the foam, if it's all dry and dusty it will need to be replaced.
To replace it, start by removing the matte black light trap (it's a black ring around the opening). Below that will be a lever and spring assembly and a steel ring, remove both.
Once all these pieces are removed remove the old foam and clean everything. A replacement can be made out of a couple of pieces of 2mm craft foam cut to fit and glued in place with pliobod.
Reverse the steps to re-assemble.