Our little Five Mates photography group, in deciding its current "Project," settled on: "we’d reduced it to, 'any manually set old metal-bodied Japanese SLR with Pentax Mount, either m42 or P/K.' And derelict/tumbledown structures." (Quote from Phil)

This week I dug out my black bodied Sears TLS body. This is a solidly built SLR with a short winding stroke and a vertically running shutter with metal blades. Metering is match-needle through the lens with stop down mode, all values manually set and mechanically activated.
Body is black lacquer over brass.
Lens mount is m42 size.
There is a sticker inside that says it was last servived by Precision Cameras, Inc., in 1977.
I replaced the three critical foam strips: light seals at either end of the back door, and the mirror bumper. Then I chose three lenses to make a kit: a Sears badged f:1.8 / 55mm, a Vivitar f:2.8 / 24mm wide, and a "Suntar" f:2.8 / 135mm telephoto.

Sunday morning before Memorial Day I headed out from home to find Old Route 66, the Mother Road.
It still exists in Missouri, the old roadbed running sort of parallel to Interstate 44, from St. Louis to Joplin.
I picked up the old road in the city of St. Clair, and followed it out to Cuba.
Camera was loaded with a roll of Walgreens asa 200 print film.
The film ran out on the outskirts of Bourbon, Missouri.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlargements.
All images are ©2011 E.J.Kowalski.