If you wanted to dig inside your TL120 but have been afraid
to do so, take heart. It isn't as bad as it may appear at
first. I've taken one apart and documented the process:
http://stereo.thurstons.us/content/?p=272

The things I found of interest:

The guts of the camera appear to be hand-assembled. This is
not a robot-built gem. This was built by humans for humans.
I'm no longer surprised there were as many versions of it as
we have seen.

There is a huge empty space under the finder mirror. In the
Rolleidoscop and the Sputnik, the mirror fits down between
the taking lenses. In the TL120, they used that space to hold
some of the shutter mechanics, so the finder is perched on
top. I think that space under the mirror is going to come in
handy.

The skin is light weight plastic (it feels like some form of
ABS), but the guts are pretty solid and made of steel. The
tripod mount is screwed to a steel plate. That steel plate is
screwed to the steel frame holding the shutters and film
transport.

The door is _not_ part of the skin. It is part of the guts.
The skin can be stripped off the camera and the film chamber
is still sealed between the shutters and the door. All those
little stress cracks around the screw heads which I've always
figured were cosmetic really are. There isn't any way they
can contribute to light leaks.

I have pictures from an earlier disassemblies, but those were
done by other people. They show a couple of differences, so
please use the pictures as reference but understand that your
camera may a bit different.
http://stereo.thurstons.us/TL120-inside.htm

At the least, my plans for the space under the mirror are for
a flash connector. I think it would also be pretty easy to
install an external power connector right there, but I really
don't have much problem with rapid battery use and I haven't
been doing long exposures.

Is there anything else you'd like me to photograph or
document in there before I button it up?
--
________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us

Thank you for sharing this with us. Having a low production, orphaned camera like this can feel a bit uncomfortable. Your pages will give us all a head start when we must one day dive inside.

Timo

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, John Thurston wrote:
>
> If you wanted to dig inside your TL120 but have been afraid
> to do so, take heart. It isn't as bad as it may appear at
> first. I've taken one apart and documented the process:
> http://stereo.thurstons.us/content/?p=272