Last month in Austin, a retired repair guy at a flea market saw me struggling with a sticky roller on an old OneStep and literally pulled a hairdryer out of his trunk to heat it up. Has anyone else run into random fixes like that that saved you a full teardown?
I used to swear by isopropyl alcohol for cleaning old shutter blades. Been doing it that way since I started repairing cameras 6 years ago. Then I messed up a set of blades on a Kodak Retina IIa last month. The IPA got behind the coating and left a cloudy residue. I was mad enough to try anything. A guy at the local camera swap meet in Portland told me to try n-heptane. I bought a small bottle for $12. First test on a junker shutter was night and day. The n-heptane evaporates clean and doesn't attack the old lubricants or blade coatings. Has anyone found a better solvent for sticky shutter blades that's still safe on old brass and paint?
I have been avoiding ultrasonic cleaners for years because I figured they would shake something loose or mess up the alignment. Last week I finally caved and dropped a seized Copal shutter into a cheap Amazon ultrasonic tank I got for $60. Ran it for 5 minutes with a little dish soap and water, and the blades freed up completely. Now I am wondering how many hours I wasted manually cleaning stuff that could have been done in a few minutes. Has anyone else seen weird results with ultrasonic on older gear?
Bought a CLA kit for a Kiev 88 from some guy in Ukraine. The tools were trash, the grease was hard as a rock. Anyone else get burned by those "complete" repair sets from eastern Europe?
Honestly, I thought heating up that 30 year old foam would make it peel right off. But the foam just turned into a gooey sludge that got all over the mirror box and took me 2 hours to clean with isopropyl alcohol. The lesson here is stick to wooden or plastic tools and go slow with a solvent, not heat. Has anyone else ruined a part by trying a shortcut like this?
I needed to strip decades of crusty black paint off a 1950s folder I'm restoring. The heat gun was cheap but I was worried about warping the thin metal. The IR station seemed safer but that's a lot to drop on one job. I went with the heat gun and kept it moving on low. It worked fine but I did get one tiny ripple near a corner. Anyone else tried IR for this kind of work or am I overthinking it?
I spent YEARS refusing to touch Nikon shutters because everyone said the ribbon cables were a nightmare. But last week I had a D600 on my bench from a local photographer in Portland and I finally gave in. Took me about 2.5 hours start to finish, and honestly the alignment was WAY easier than the Canon 5D series I'm used to. Anyone else find one brand surprisingly easier than you expected?
Honestly, I was so proud of this old 50mm lens I picked up for $40 at a swap meet in Austin last month. I thought it was some rare Japanese glass from the 70s. Took it to a guy who does optical bench testing for fun, and he laughed. He said the serial number matches a cheap Chinese rehouse from the mid 90s. Apparently a bunch of these got sold as 'vintage' to tourists and newbies. I felt like such a fool, but also kind of impressed by the hustle. Has anyone else gotten burned by fake vintage camera gear from a flea market?
Guy comes in with a Nikon F2 that's been rattling for months, says he figured a few hard shakes would fix the loose part inside. Took me 20 minutes to fish out three broken shutter curtain gears that had been bouncing around in there, how do people come up with this stuff?
I had a customer bring in their dad's old K1000 last week that sat in a closet since the 90s. Opened it up and the light seal foam had basically melted into this sticky black tar all over the mirror box and film chamber. Took me like 2 hours with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs to get it cleaned out. Anyone else deal with this specific gooey mess from 80s cameras? I ended up ordering new foam strips from a place in Ohio for $12, hope that holds up better.
I used to be in the camp that said every old camera needs a full CLA the minute it hits your bench. But I had a customer bring in a Rolleiflex 2.8C last month that was working fine except for a sticky focus knob. I told him it needed the full treatment, he said no just fix the knob. I cleaned the helicoid and adjusted the gears, charged him $60, and he left happy. Two weeks later he came back and said it was the smoothest it had ever been. I guess my point is that sometimes we jump to the full overhaul because it's what we know and it covers our butt, but maybe we should listen more to what the customer actually needs. Has anyone else had a job where doing less actually made things better?
It was already hazy and I was trying to get the fungus off, but I pressed too hard with a Q-tip and the coating just flaked off in a chunk. Anyone ever had a lens coating just peel like that on its own?
For like 6 years I was dragging out my shutter speed tester for every CLA and it took forever. Then an old timer named Gary at a shop in Portland showed me how to listen to the curtain travel and check for hesitation. I was nervous to trust my ears at first but after a few dozen tries on a beat up Pentax Spotmatic it clicked. Now I only grab the tester for finicky focal plane shutters above 1/500. Does anyone else rely on audio cues for speeding up their bench work?
An old repair guy at a camera shop in Portland told me if I soaked stripped brass screws in white vinegar overnight they'd loosen right up. Tried it on a seized shutter plate screw from a 1970s Pentax Spotmatic. Next morning the screw was still stuck and now it had this weird green crust all over the brass. Has anyone else had a home remedy backfire like that or is it just me?
I had been cleaning sticky shutter blades with 99% isopropyl for years. Then last month I tackled a 1950s Mamiya and the alcohol actually made the blades curl up. A vintage repair guy told me those old lubricants dissolve and expand into the gaps. Now I'm split between continuing with alcohol for newer stuff and switching to Ronsonol lighter fluid for anything pre-1970. What do you guys use on really old shutters without wrecking them?
I was working on an old Pentax Spotmatic last Tuesday in my garage, trying to get the shutter timing right, and the curtain just tore when I advanced it. It was one of those rubberized cloth ones that get stiff with age. I ended up having to track down a donor camera on eBay for like $25 to get a good curtain out of it. Has anyone else had luck patching those tears or is replacement always the way to go?
Ran into a retired repair guy at a coffee shop near Pike Place last week. He said he only uses compressed CO2 cans and never touches the sensor with a swab. Said he's fixed 30 years of dusty sensors that way without a single scratch. Made me think maybe I'm too quick to use wet cleaning methods.
He said a tiny drop of Ronsonol on the pivot points breaks up 40 years of gunk in like 10 seconds, has anyone else tried this on a worn-out leaf shutter?
I was at the Camera Repair Expo in Cleveland last month. A guy brought in a 1950s Voigtlander with a stuck Copal shutter. I tried my usual method with lighter fluid and it barely loosened up. Turns out those old shutters have a different lubricant that turns to glue after 60 years. Now I use a specific heat gun trick before even touching solvent. Has anyone else run into this with pre-1960 Copal shutters?
Some guy brought in a Canon 50mm f/1.4 claiming I scratched it during a cleaning, but when I checked under a bright light it was just a dried fingerprint. After that I started showing customers the gunk on their own lenses through my loupe before touching anything. Anyone else deal with folks blaming you for their own dirt?
I was cleaning a Canonet QL17 for a client and the aperture blades just would not budge after reassembly. Turns out I had the cam ring off by one tiny tooth and it took me four hours to figure that out. Anyone else spend way too long on a simple fix like this?
I spent 5 hours last saturday trying to unstick the shutter on a Minolta SRT-101. It was this tiny burr on the main gear that I kept missing because I was looking at the wrong part. My back hurt so bad from hunching over my desk. Has anyone else had a repair that took way longer than it should have because of one tiny thing?
I was in my garage workshop and the spring flew across the room, but I found it under my workbench after twenty minutes of searching. Anyone have a better method for handling those tiny springs without losing them?