Wrote off the $12 fiberglass brush from the electronics surplus bin, then it cleaned a rusted Minolta mirror box in 20 minutes | Camera Repairers - nhfree.com
Wrote off the $12 fiberglass brush from the electronics surplus bin, then it cleaned a rusted Minolta mirror box in 20 minutes
Stopped by a surplus shop in Akron last month and dug a stiff little fiberglass brush out of a bin for $12, mostly because I needed a spare and figured it was junk. I'd always used cotton swabs and lens tissue on mirror boxes, and I was sure the brush would just smear oil around or shed fibers into the box. Tried it on a crusty Minolta X-700 that sat in a garage for years, and it lifted the dried gunk off the mirror and the screen frame with no scratches and no lint left behind. I've now used it on 6 bodies with the same result. Anyone else keep one of those in their kit, or is there a better tool for that dried film on the mirror box?
My buddy Dale runs a camera repair bench out of his garage in Toledo and he swore by those cheap fiberglass pens for years. He picked one up at a hamfest for like 8 bucks and used it on everything from Pentax mirror boxes to old Yashica rangefinders. What he told me was the trick is to barely touch the surface, like you are brushing off dust and not scrubbing. He learned that the hard way after he went too hard on one mirror and left faint marks. He still keeps two in his kit and just retracts the fiber tip when it gets worn down.