Friday, January 15, 2010

Teal Duaflex II

My paint brush knows no bounds!

From painting an envelope, to a box, to the back of a photo for a prettier signature, to flowers on boxes for a prettier delivery, to a pony (which started ModFauna) and now to a Duaflex II.

Tonight I stared longingly at the broken and seemingly un-fixable Duaflex II that graced one of my floating shelves. I sell Duaflex cameras as well as many other vintage and antique cameras online, but this one was in too poor shape to pass along. It had a corroded mirror and a missing film advance knob. I decided that if it was just there for decoration, why not make it as pretty as possible? So off to work I went, disassembling and laying everything out on the table.

I looked at the corroded mirror, worn completely to the glass with no reflecting, and looked over at my compack and did some work. It's surprising to me how perfectly the compact mirror fits into the camera, so in it went.

I selected a very pleasing shade of teal for the leatherette and after taking everything apart I painted all leatherette surfaces with two coats, then sealed with a clear seal. After much cursing during reassembly, my camera looks fabulous!

It still has no film advance knob, so for the film user it is still useless, however, for the TtV photographer it is in fabulous working order. I am very pleased with my creation!

I do believe I will make a habit of this. I would like to paint one or two more and see if they sell. I think it would be very fun to have a TtV in a designer shade. I have aspirations of possibly adding designs... We'll see. For now, everything will be in solid, and I'll have to wait until I see how they will sell.

Pictures to come soon!

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