Dry fit advice from a retired shop owner cost me a shutter

I was working on a Pentax Spotmatic last week and this old timer at the local camera club told me to dry fit the shutter curtain every time before adding the final tension. Ignored him because I was in a hurry, now the curtain is jammed and I have to tear the whole top plate off again. Anyone else learn this lesson the hard way by skipping the dry fit?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher71323d ago

Man I feel your pain but honestly I've been burned just as bad by trusting old timer advice. Last year some guy at a swap meet swore I should use lighter fluid to clean a shutter mechanism on my old Minolta. Told me he'd been doing it since the 60s. Well that stuff ate through some foam and I spent a whole weekend replacing light seals. Now I just nod and smile when they give tips.

butler.abby23d ago

My dad's still convinced that putting a potato in the microwave with a broken fuse will bring it back to life. Some people just cling to what worked once and call it wisdom. It's like how everyone's got a uncle who swears by putting bacon grease on a burn or how some people still think you can repair a cracked phone screen with toothpaste. Old tricks get passed down like gospel even when they've been proven wrong a hundred times over. At some point you gotta wonder if the real skill is knowing when to smile and do the opposite.