Part of vintage photobooth ownership is the necessity to get your hands dirty.
Anyone who has ever restored, serviced or maintained an old booth knows that the very nature of the machinery demands a certain amount of mechanical know-how and a basic understanding of electronics, not to mention a grasp of Photography 101. And due to the overwhelming dearth of information available on the all-knowing internet, much of that know-how must be learned firsthand, by tinkering, by trial and error, and by hunting down people in obscure locations who retain some of the knowledge of these booths. In a way, its a bit like fixing up an old car. A lot of the information has been lost--the rule book has been tossed out--requiring the mechanic to make it up as he goes, albeit within certain parameters. For us gear-heads and grease-monkeys out there, this is exciting. It's a big puzzle waiting to be completed. And the reward for a successful rebuild is that familiar black and white strip--the validation that whatever we just did, we must have done something right.
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| Limited information was found in the original manual for the Model 21. |
We are currently in overhaul mode on multiple machines. When we first opened the cabinet door on these booths it was a bit like opening a tomb. Dust and cobwebs everywhere and the acrid rusty smell of years of photo chemicals eating away at metal parts. The first step is to completely strip the cabinet of all the components. This in itself is a feat as every little part is integrated and synced with other parts. And as these parts are hard to come by, the preferred method of sledging away with a heavy hammer is not beneficial.
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| Inside the cabinet once most parts have been removed. |
Next, all the pieces are cleaned and checked for malfunctions. Often times a surgeon's precision is needed to re-assemble the tiny springs, gears, chains, and screws that hold all the internal workings together. Every part within the booth obviously must work automatically, (contrary to popular myth, there is not a team of small fairies inside the booth making it run) and this means that all the gears must align with one another and all the switches must be hit at just the right time.
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| Inside the Camera |
Once all the mechanical parts are cleaned and accounted, the next step is to make sure all the electrical components are in working order. This entails replacing many of the terminals and connectors that have become corroded. A general rule for operating is to replace anything that looks or feels suspect. Rarely do you know the whole history of the booth--who owned it, who cleaned it, how often it was serviced--and a few extra dollars for new electrical wires is cheap insurance . You have to remember that these booths often sat for months and even years, a lot of the time still full of chemistry, until they were finally worked on. The fumes the chemistry emits, given enough time, can do major rust damage to the booth. Given that electrical wires are themselves metal and susceptible to corrosion, it is easy to have many of the electrical components compromised. And this is just the wires. Then you get into the circuitry boards, the transformers, the motors, the capacitors, and the switches and you have yourself an introduction course in electrical engineering.
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| Credit Unit |
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| Camera Relay - cir. 1950s? |
Finally, once all the parts are cleaned and inspected, the cabinet is wire brushed and de-rusted, a coat of paint thrown on the rough parts, the rusted nuts and bolts drilled out, the wire terminals scrubbed and replaced, the gears oiled, the chains lubed, the bulbs replaced, and the curtains washed, we then get to the reassembly part. By this point it is a lot like putting together a big metallic puzzle. With a little understanding of how the whole process works, we can easily piece together each part where it should be so that it can perform its specialized duty. Knowing that the paper film strip must find its way from the Spider Arm Assembly (no joke, that's its real name) to the Delivery Unit, we know where the Delivery Unit must be to accept the film. So we put it there and line it up.
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| Delivery Unit |
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| Spider Arm Assembly--pretty cool, huh? |
Finally, after a nice finish scrub down and a quick buffing of the reflectors and flash bulbs, we are ready to juice it up and test to make sure all the parts actually work. Before we actually test all the parts with electricity and cycle through the actions a few times, we really are not 100% sure any of it works. While it can look spotless from the outside, only an actual test run can illuminate what really works and what just looks pretty.
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| Flash Bulb and Reflector |
After all this comes the photographic part. Think of a mad scientist mixing alchemy in a dark room. That's the extent of the chemical mixing. Proper levels, ratios, and temperatures must be maintained and the paper must be loaded in total darkness and the by-now-familiar trial and error process begins anew.
That's all there is to it. Almost. Then the outside of the booth must be "re-skinned." This entails designing and choosing the "look" of the booth. And then it is all carpentry tools and finish work to make the booth look as good on the outside as it is complicated on the inside.
So, the next time your little strip pops out, think about all the little arms and gears that had to hit just right to make it work. Its pretty ingenious and impressive the level or precision that makes the photos happen. I think it is worth the price of a drink to have a little piece of that.
