c/camera-repairers

TIL the hard way about brass gear drag on old SLRs

Last month I had a Minolta SRT-101 on the bench, shutter was sticking at slow speeds. I pulled the top cover and found the brass advance gear had this fine gray sludge all over it, like powder mixed with grease. Turns out old brass gears wear down and that dust gets into the timing assembly, causing lag. I flushed it with lighter fluid, re-lubed with a tiny dab of watch oil, and it ran smooth as butter after. Three years ago I would have just replaced the whole wind mechanism and charged the customer $90 in parts. Now I know to check gear wear first, saved the guy $60. Has anyone else dealt with that brass dust issue on older Minoltas or Pentaxes?

Found a 1972 Canon F-1 in a basement, the meter was still alive

The difference in shutter speeds after I cleaned a sticky aperture blade group in a Rolleiflex from 1962

Before it was a guessing game between 1/30 and 1/500, but after one careful pass with lighter fluid and a tiny brush in my garage last Tuesday, every click landed within a half stop, so has anyone else found that old sticky grease from 6 decades ago just flakes off or does it always turn into a mess?

A shutter curtain spring sent me to the ER in Minneapolis

Last spring I took on a beat-up Canon FTb for a friend, the curtain was dragging something fierce. I figured a quick re-tension, 20 minutes tops. I got the spring loose and that thing UNCOILED like a snake, caught my thumb and sliced it clean to the bone. Blood on the bench, on the shutter, everywhere. I spent 4 hours in the ER getting 6 stitches and a tetanus shot, cost me $180 after insurance. My whole approach changed after that, I now use a proper spring winder tool and I tape over the curtain opening before I even touch the mechanism. Any other repair folks got a nasty injury story that made you switch up your process? Has anyone else dealt with a spring that got away from them?

One bad CLA turned into a three week nightmare on a Pentax 6x7

Had a customer bring in a Pentax 6x7 with sticky mirror bounce. Simple enough job, right? Took it apart, cleaned the mechanism, put it back together. Test fire looked fine. Day two the mirror locks up halfway and the shutter fires at 1/1000 no matter what. Tore it down again, found a tiny spring I'd seated wrong. Fixed that, reassembled, ran 20 rolls through it without issue. Then on day nine the film counter starts skipping. That one took another week to trace back to a bent tooth on the advance gear that I must have bumped during the first teardown. Customer was patient but I told them not to pay until it passed a full week of daily use. Has anyone else had a simple CLA snowball like this? How do you keep yourself from rushing reassembly on a big format body?

Rant: why do people still use isopropyl alcohol on shutters without checking the curtain material first

Last week a guy brought in a Pentax K1000 with sticky blades and I watched him douse the shutter with 91% alcohol before I could stop him, stripped the coating right off the fabric, so has anyone else run into this and do you just keep a scrap bin of donor cameras for the inevitable mess?

Rant: Why I finally ditched my ultrasonic cleaner for a hand bath on old cameras

I used to throw every dirty body and lens into my ultrasonic tank, thinking it was the fastest way to get things spotless. Then last month I got a Canonet QL17 with a sticky shutter and a bunch of haze on the glass, and the ultrasonic just made it worse, the haze turned into a film I couldn't see until it dried. A guy in a repair group from Portland told me he never uses ultrasonic on cameras older than the 1980s because it can loosen the cement on glued elements and shake loose tiny screws. So now I do a hand bath with a mild soap solution, a soft brush, and lots of patience, especially for the shutter blades and aperture ring. Takes me about 45 minutes longer per body, but I've had way fewer comeback repairs since I switched in March. Has anyone else noticed ultrasonic damage on vintage glass, or am I just being paranoid about something that works fine for you?

Careful with those cheap ultrasonic cleaner transducers from eBay

Last month I grabbed one of those 60W transducers for my parts tank, figured it was a straight swap for the old one. 3 years ago I'd done the same thing with a different brand and it worked fine, but this time it started arcing inside the housing after about 20 minutes of use. The tank itself didn't short out, but the transducer cracked and sent little metal shards into my cleaning solution, which then scratched a shutter blade I had sitting in there. Anyone else had issues with these knockoff parts from overseas, or is there a specific supplier you trust for replacement transducers?

Spent 6 hours on a shutter that just needed a drop of oil

Went to fix a jammed shutter on a 70s SLR yesterday. Took the whole top plate off, checked the gears, cleaned everything, put it back together twice. Still sticking. Got annoyed and took a break. Looked at it one more time and saw the pivot pin was bone dry. One tiny drop of oil and it worked instantly. Six hours for something that basic. Anyone else ever chase a simple fix with a full teardown first?

TIL a $15 blower brush beats my fancy compressor setup for sensor dust

Been fighting stubborn sensor spots on a Nikon D850 for weeks, tried every swab and solution. Bought one of those squeeze bulb blowers at a camera fair in Portland and the first puff cleared it right off, no air line needed. Has anyone else found the low tech tool that wins over the expensive gear?

Heard a customer say 'just replace the whole lens' and I had to walk away

Some guy at the counter yesterday was mad about a $60 repair quote and said his phone camera does the same job anyway. I mean, do people even think about cleaning contacts or checking the aperture blades before they call a body dead? Has anyone else had to bite their tongue when someone treats film gear like disposable tech?

Old Canon AE-1 shutter finally freed up with a heat trick

Had a Canon AE-1 in the shop for weeks, shutter stuck at 1/1000 and no amount of cleaning fluid would budge it. Tried a hair dryer on low for about 4 minutes around the curtain drum, and it loosened right up enough to finish the job. Cost me nothing extra, just patience and a $12 thermometer to keep it under 120 degrees. Anyone else use heat on sticky shutters or am I asking for trouble down the road?

A customer's comment made me rethink how I quote lens cleaning

This older guy dropped off a 50mm prime with fungus and when I quoted him $85, he just laughed and said he could buy a used one for less. I started explaining the work involved, but he cut me off and asked why I wasn't selling the value of saving his specific copy, which had sentimental marks on the barrel. Turns out he didn't care about the cost, he cared that I treated it like a commodity. Now I ask if the lens has a story before I give a number. Has anyone else found that changing how you frame the work changes the customer's reaction?

A customer's cat knocked a lens off a table, the repair bill got weird fast

Last Thursday a guy brought in a Canon 50mm f/1.8 that his cat pushed off a bookshelf. The barrel was bent but the glass was fine, so I quoted him $95 for a new barrel assembly. He asked if I could just tape it together, so I showed him the filter threads were smashed and told him it would wobble on the mount. He sighed, paid, and then asked if I could fix his cat's scratched eye next. Has anyone else had a customer try to get a pet included in a repair quote?

Pro tip: use a rubber band to grip stuck lens rings, saved me 3 hours last Saturday

Had a 50mm f/1.4 that wouldn't budge on the focusing ring. Tried a filter wrench, suction cup, even freezing it for 20 minutes. Nothing. Then I remembered an old trick from a repair guy in Portland: wrap a thick rubber band around the ring, then twist. The rubber gives you grip without marring the metal. Took 10 seconds. Has anyone else got a cheap hack that beats expensive tools?

Customer handed me a camera full of sand, got mad when I quoted the cleanup

Dude brought in a Nikon from a beach wedding in Miami last week. Sand everywhere, shutter stuck, lens grinding like gravel. I told him $180 minimum for a full tear down and clean. He said, 'Can't you just blow it out with air?' I opened the card door and a pile of sand hit the counter. He walked out muttering. Has anyone else dealt with people thinking compressed air fixes sand damage? How do you break it to them without a fight?

Hit 500 shutter count repairs last month, here is what surprised me

I passed 500 repairs on my bench just before the holidays, which sounds like a lot, but honestly I never counted until I hit a slow week. What got me was that over a third of those were simple shutter blade cleanings, not the big rebuilds I expected. A Nikon FE from 1978 came in with stuck blades and it only took a drop of naphtha and some patience to get it firing again. That made me wonder if I should be charging more for the diagnosis instead of the fix, because the knowledge is really the product. Has anyone else kept tally and found one issue dominating their bench time?

Pro tip: screwdriver shaft length matters more than you think

Spent 40 minutes fighting a stuck helical gear in a Pentax Spotmatic because my short shaft screwdriver kept slipping at that angle. Swapped to a 6 inch precision driver and it came out in one turn, has anyone else had a stubborn screw that only gave in with the right tool length?

Just realized I was stripping screw heads wrong for 4 years

Turns out I was pushing way too hard with the driver tip, instead of seating it flush and letting the torque do the work. A Canon shutter plate screw rounded out on me last Tuesday and a old timer at the bench pointed it out. Anyone else had that 'oh crap' moment with their screwdriver technique?

Warning: skip the $90 lens cleaning kit from the big box store

Last month I wanted to clean a stubborn fungus spot off an old Takumar. Bought this fancy kit with swabs, fluid, and a blower. Turns out the fluid left a weird film on the glass and the swabs shredded. Had to send the lens to a pro anyway, cost me $60 extra. Total waste of $90. What do you guys actually use for fungus cleaning that won't ruin coatings?

Finally hit 1,000 shutters replaced and I had no idea it was that many

Honestly, I only counted because I had a stack of old shutter assemblies in a bin that looked too heavy, and when I tallied the repair logs from the last 18 months it came to exactly 1,003 units, so what number made you realize you'd been in this trade longer than you thought?

The customer who taught me to check the pressure plate first

Had a guy bring in a Canon AE-1 with film that kept getting scratched, he was about to toss it in the trash. I opened it up and found a tiny burr on the pressure plate, filed it down in 5 minutes and charged him $20. He looked at me like I was a magician and now he drops off every camera he finds at garage sales. Has anyone else had one small fix that turned a stranger into a regular customer?

That 1980s shutter bounce issue took me 2 weeks in Boise

Honestly, I thought I had a bad solenoid in this old Canon AE-1, so I swapped it out on Tuesday. But the mirror still flopped on slow speeds, and I kept chasing the timing circuit until Friday. Turns out the real fix was cleaning the foam bumper that had turned to sticky goo, not any electrical part at all. The mirror was just sticking for a split second, and that felt like a bounce through the whole frame. I wasted close to 14 hours on part swaps before I looked at the mechanics with a loupe. Has anyone else spent days on a slow speed issue that ended up being pure cushioning, or am I the only one who ignores the obvious? What's your go-to trick for spotting worn foam without tearing the whole camera apart first?

PSA: Watch the wiring in older storefronts before you start a job

I was in a shop outside Columbus last week to repair a Pentax K1000 for the owner. When I opened the back, I found a live wire from an old camera case light had been tapped into the store's power strip, not the camera's battery. The insulation was cracked and arcing against the metal plate. I stopped the job right there and told the owner to call an electrician. Has anyone else run into DIY electrical work hiding inside a body or accessory? How do you handle it before touching the shutter?

Screw extractors vs. drilling out, one of them won big today

I spent 2 hours fighting a stripped screw on an old Pentax body with a cheap extractor kit, then grabbed my cobalt drill bits and had it out in 10 minutes. The extractor just kept snapping off and made the hole worse, while the drill bit walked right through the mangled head. Anybody else given up on extractors for tiny camera screws or is there a brand that actually works?