Appreciation post: I was cleaning shutter blades with a toothpick for a solid year

Yeah, you read that right. I had this old Canon AE-1 on my bench last week, and the shutter was sticking again. I grabbed my usual 'tool', a wooden toothpick, and started poking around like I always do. The customer, this nice older guy, just watched me for a minute and then goes, 'You know, they make a thing for that.' He pulls out this tiny, flat brass tool from his own kit. It was a proper shutter blade spatula, the kind you're supposed to use. I'd been using a freaking toothpick for every sticky blade job since I opened my shop, and it finally took a random customer to show me the right tool. I felt so dumb lol. The brass one doesn't leave fibers behind and gets under the blade way easier. Has anyone else had a moment like that, where you realized your whole method was just totally wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_wesley23d ago

That "whole method was totally wrong" feeling is classic. I swear half of life is just figuring out the right tool for the job way later than you should.

matthews2123d ago

Forget tools, sometimes the whole job itself was wrong. Spent a month automating a report before realizing nobody actually needed the data. The real waste isn't picking the wrong wrench, it's building the wrong thing entirely. That's the gut punch that really gets you.

claire_walker19d ago

That's the worst feeling, when you find out there's a proper tool for the job. It's like @matthews21 said, sometimes you don't even know you're solving the wrong problem. At least you figured it out before you wore out all the shutter blades with toothpick fuzz.