Very nice photo! Can you tell me what rubber band you used for the shutter? I have a Camroc I'd like to fly, but it looks like it has the original rubber band which has stretched and lost its elasticity.

No idea. It seems like it could be fresher (i.e. more stretchy.) I actually used a different CAMROC I bought off of EBay. I used whatever rubber band was on the CAMROC when I got it.

As for a rubber band, visit you local orthodontist and ask to buy a package of the rubber bands used on braces. They come in different sizes. Get the smallest and one that is a tad larger. If you tell them what you are doing they will probably give them to you. They give them to me!

It is a standard rubber band size but I forget what it is right now. I have it at home though and I'll look it up tonight (unless someone beats me to it today).

I bought a whole box about 10 years ago for my Camrocs. Needless to say I never used all of them

That's great, thanks for the info and let me know what you find as far as size. I have an upcoming dental checkup so I'll see if I can snag some rubber bands. I think I posted this before some time ago, but I have some interesting cineroc/camroc/astrocam pages on my own website rcgrabbag.com including an 8mm movie produced by Estes about prepping and flying the Cineroc.

Ted,
You might want to check out Vern's site (www.vernestes.com) as he has just posted an article from a Denver sunday magazine about Estes. It talks briefly about the Camroc, and that it was not yet, but about to be, released.

__________________
Roy
nar12605

I know Tedster mentioned those bands, but those are generally not rubber and will likely change the shutter speed. But then again that might not matter a whole lot. The original film (IIRC) was ASA 400, a.k.a. Tri-X, but I have used Plus-X which is ASA 125. Since it is a negative you can compensate when printing or you can push-process the film (which is what I did). But here you know what the ASA difference is, but with an unknown rubber band (and subsequent unknown shutter speed) you'd be guessing.

But then again it is a Camroc and the orthodontic bands might work just fine. YMMV.

The good thing is b&w film has a lot of lattitude and can deal well with inconsistencies like shutter speeds that undoubtedly occur with such a simple device like the camroc. I've processed hundreds of feet of b&w film as a teenager years ago and was able to rescue quite a few less-than-optimal exposures. Today with a computer and image editing programs like photoshop, it's even easier.

Did you have any concerns/issues with light leakage in your old Camroc? I have three used Camrocs and the felt lining around the slot for the metal light shield has disintegrated in all of them. In fact, I took delivery of a Camroc a few months ago and there was this awful smell, like burnt electrical components coming from the Camroc. I opened the Camroc and this black sticky powder fell out. Took me a while to figure out that this was the remains of a foam light baffle that had decomposed. I only found this out after looking at the parts breakdown in a set of original Camroc instructions. I have a fourth Camroc still in the package, but I don't plan on flying that one!

Yeah I had concerns, that is why I used Plus-X instead of Tri-X. But looking back that was probably a dumb idea since either one would likely be fogged if there was light leaking into the camera. We're not talking the difference between ASA 4000 and 125.

Are you sure it was the felt around the slide slot that went bad? The reason I ask is because that felt is still in pretty good shape on my Camrocs. There was this black foam piece that you rolled up and put into the camera barrel that *did* disintegrate very badly. It turned into sticky goo on all the ones I had. That stuff was probably used to cut down on any internal reflections from the polished plastic barrel, but likely wasn’t required.

I put a piece of black gaffer’s tape over the slide slot and only removed it just to install or remove the slide. You could probably use electrical tape just the same.

Actually, yes, upon second examination, the felt is in good shape on the Camrocs. Thanks. It was the foam baffle I was thinking about. Been a while since I looked at this stuff.

Using a B6-4 I think I got sky shots, 2 of 'em. I'll try a C6-7 but I really need to wait until the wind quits. Hobby Lobby sells a black felt with stickum on the backside. It can replace the foam Estes used.

On my film cartridges the felt is also still good. I went back to using the slde because it is easier.

I read the article on Vern's site, another bit of info!

Does anyone have CAMROC war stories? I want some to use in an article. I will credit you with them.