c/camera-repairers

Hit 500 shutter repairs last month and it changed my mind about cleaning them

I always thought you had to fully disassemble and soak every shutter curtain to get them working right. That's the popular method on this forum, I know. But after fixing about 500 of them over 4 years in my shop in Portland, I found that just blowing out the old dust and oiling the pivot points fixes 8 out of 10 shutters. People say you're cutting corners, but my success rate is the same and I save 20 minutes per camera. Anyone else have a number of repairs that made them rethink the standard way?

Had a shutter curtain fall off mid-roll on a Yashica yesterday

I was testing a Yashica-Mat I just got in, running a roll of cheap film through it to check speeds. About frame 8 I heard a thud inside and the mirror locked up. Opened it up and the entire first curtain had slipped its track, just dangling by one string. Took me 45 minutes with tweezers and a loupe to get it back in place. Anyone else had a curtain just give up like that on an old TLR?

Stuck on a shutter curtain timing issue for 3 days straight

I spent nearly 6 hours adjusting the curtain tension on a Nikon FM2 before realizing the problem was just a bent fork in the take-up spool - what's the longest you've chased a dumb fix that turned out to be something simple?

Tried to clean a shutter with lighter fluid and learned my lesson

I was out in my garage last Saturday working on an old Pentax Spotmatic. The shutter blades were sticking at slower speeds, so I figured a quick lighter fluid rinse would do the trick. Well, I got too aggressive with the cotton swab and ended up bending one of the blade arms. Now the whole shutter assembly needs replacing. Has anyone else ruined a part by getting too rough with cleaning?

That guy who said to never use solder wick on old Leica wire joints was totally right

My buddy Dave who runs a shop in Portland warned me about this. I tried it anyway on a M3 shutter wire last month and ended up lifting a pad. Cost me $150 to get someone to jump the trace. Now I just use a tiny iron and fresh rosin core, no wick at all. Any of you have a trick for getting old solder off without wrecking the board?

Dropped by an old camera shop in downtown Portland last week

The place has been there since the 1950s and the owner was still using a leather bellows repair jig his dad made. He pulled out a box of brass screws that looked like they had been sitting there since the Nixon administration. Anyone else notice fewer shops stocking parts like that these days?

Got a stuck shutter on a Canon AE-1 from the 80s...

Picked up this Canon AE-1 from a thrift store for $40 last Saturday. The shutter fires but sticks halfway on the second curtain at slower speeds. Tried cleaning the curtain tracks with lighter fluid and a Q-tip, worked for a few shots then jammed again. Thinking the magnet assembly might need adjusting or the foam bumper is turning to goo. Anyone else run into this on old Canons and found a fix that sticks?

Shoutout to the moment I stopped cleaning lens contacts with alcohol wipes

I spent 2 years scrubbing lens contacts with isopropyl alcohol wipes until a customer brought in a Nikon F3 that I just couldn't get to work after cleaning. He told me, "I think you're stripping the coating off the contacts." I looked online and found out you're supposed to just use a dry microfiber cloth or a contact cleaner pen. Now my repair success rate went from about 60% to 95% on dirty contacts. Has anyone else been using the wrong cleaner for years too?

That tip about cleaning contact points with a pencil eraser actually fixed a dead shutter

Old timer on a forum told me to try a regular pencil eraser on the battery contacts of a Canon AE-1 I'd given up on, and it worked like magic after three other things failed. Has anyone else had a weird 'hail mary' fix actually save a body you were about to part out?

Nearly ruined a Rolleiflex with isopropyl alcohol on the lens coating

I was cleaning a Rolleiflex 3.5F in my shop last Tuesday and grabbed the bottle of 99% iso by mistake instead of my lens cleaner. Put a drop on a microfiber cloth and went to wipe the front element and saw the coating start to streak almost instantly. Caught it after maybe two seconds but I still had to spend 45 minutes gently buffing it out with lens-specific solution. The owner was picking it up Friday too. Has anyone else had a close call like that with the wrong solvent?

Tried cleaning a shutter with lighter fluid on a whim... actually worked on a Minolta SRT-101

Finally got a Yashica Electro 35 light meter working again

I had a GSN sitting on my shelf for 6 months with the dead pod syndrome and tried the trick of cleaning the pad switch contacts with 91% isopropyl. It actually fired up on the first try after that, anyone else have that work or did I just get lucky?

Chat with a retired Pentax repair guy in Seattle changed how I approach shutter cleaning

I was swapping stories with this older gentleman at a camera swap meet in Seattle last month. He told me he never uses more than one drop of lighter fluid on any cloth pad for leaf shutters. Said most repairs he saw were from people oversaturating and leaving residue. Has anyone else found that less actually gives better results on sticky blades?

Latex gloves for CLA work? I switched from bare hands last month

I used to do all my lens cleaning with bare fingers and got tired of leaving smudges on glass and foam. A buddy at a shop in Portland told me he wears nitrile gloves for every shutter repair now. Has anyone else tried switching to gloves for precision work or do you prefer the feel of bare hands?

Ran into a retired Nikon repair tech at a diner and he changed how I think about shutter curtains

I was at a small diner in Lancaster, PA last Saturday and sat next to an older gentleman who saw my shirt with camera gears on it. Turns out he spent 40 years repairing Nikon F series bodies for a rental house in New York. He told me most shutter curtain problems aren't from wear, but from people storing cameras with the shutter cocked. Said he saw hundreds of cameras with stretched curtains that could have been avoided just by firing the shutter before putting them away. Has anyone else heard this rule or is it just an old timer thing?

Found a trick for cleaning old lens fungus that actually works

I was at a camera swap meet in Detroit last Saturday and overheard an old timer telling someone about using hydrogen peroxide and UV light on fungus. Tried it on a 50mm f1.4 I had sitting in a drawer with a bad case of it. Left it in direct sunlight for 3 hours after wiping the elements down with peroxide and it cleared up about 80 percent of the haze. Has anyone else tried this method or got a better one for the stubborn spots?

Finally got an old Polaroid back to life with a pencil eraser

I had this 600 series camera sitting in a box for maybe 5 years, wouldn't fire at all. Read somewhere that those brass contact strips get tarnished and lose connection, so I took a regular pink pencil eraser and just rubbed them for like 30 seconds each. Worked like a charm, first shot came out clear. Anybody else have a random household item that saved a repair?

That cheap light seal foam ruined my Pentax K1000

I bought a roll of that generic adhesive foam from Amazon to replace the light seals on a K1000 I was fixing up. After putting it all back together, the mirror was sticking and the film counter stopped working. Turns out the foam was too thick and had this oily residue that got all over the mirror mechanism. I had to take the whole top plate off and clean everything with isopropyl alcohol. Finally ordered the pre-cut kit from that guy in Ohio who cuts them specifically for each model. Has anyone else had trouble with generic foam messing up their repair?

Warning: I keep seeing people try to fix sticky shutter blades with canned air

Had a guy bring in a Pentax K1000 last week where the blades were fused together because he blasted them, thinking it would free them up. The propellant just gums everything up worse and can push debris deeper into the mechanism. What's the first thing you reach for when you see a slow shutter, before you even open the camera up?

Appreciation post: my dad told me to always check the mirror foam on old SLRs

He ran a shop in Cincinnati for 30 years and said the foam turns to goo and can jam the mirror. I ignored it on a Nikon FE2 that came in last month, just cleaned the shutter. The customer called back two days later with a stuck mirror. Had to eat the cost of a full teardown to fix my own mess. That simple check would have saved me three hours and a free repair. Anyone else have a basic tip they learned the hard way?

Just realized I've been seeing a lot of repair attempts where people overtighten the tiny screws on a lens mount, stripping the threads.

I've had to fix three separate Canon EF mounts this month where the owner thought 'snug' meant 'crank it until it stops,' and now I'm curious if anyone has a good trick for explaining proper torque to a customer without getting too technical.

I keep seeing people strip the wrong screw on a Canon AE-1's top plate and it's a huge headache to fix.

After fixing three of them this month where someone used the wrong driver and mangled the JIS crosshead, I'm convinced a basic $15 JIS screwdriver set would save so many DIYers from a costly mistake.

Warning: I thought a $40 ultrasonic cleaner was a total gimmick for shutter assemblies

Tried one on a sticky Nikon FM2 mechanism from a garage sale and it actually worked perfectly. Anyone have a better method for cleaning old leaf shutters?

Appreciation post: My $80 lens spanner wrench finally paid for itself

It let me fix a stuck zoom ring on a vintage 70-210mm in ten minutes instead of sending it out. What's your go-to tool that seemed pricey but you use all the time now?

A guy brought in a Polaroid SX-70 that his wife had carried on their first date

He came into my shop about five years ago, holding it like a baby bird. The leather was worn smooth, and the viewfinder was cloudy. He said, 'She passed last month, and I found this in her closet. It still has the picture from that night in the viewfinder, but it's all faded.' I got it open, and sure enough, the old film pack was fused to the rollers. Cleaning it out took me two hours with isopropyl and a set of dental picks I keep for gunk like that. When I got it working and that little motor whirred, he just sat there quiet for a minute. He didn't care about the cost, just that it could make a sound again. Makes you think about all the stories sitting broken in drawers. What's the oldest personal item someone's brought you to fix?