Always thought cleaning shutter blades with lighter fluid was a bad idea until a sticky Minolta X-700

Had a customer's X-700 with a shutter that kept hanging up, and I was sure it was a spring issue. After taking it apart twice, an old guy at the camera swap in Denver told me to try a tiny bit of Ronsonol on a swab, just on the blade edges. I was sure it would ruin the finish, but it freed up the movement perfectly. Anyone else have a 'bad' trick that actually works for sticky leaf shutters?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_thomas1mo ago

Just keep hitting it until it works.

lisaf381mo ago

Man, that feeling when a shutter just WON'T behave is the worst. Been there with an old Rollei that drove me nuts. Sometimes those old-school fixes feel totally wrong, but you can't argue with results. It's a huge relief when something that simple gets it moving again.

the_adam1mo ago

Old cameras basically run on spite and hope. You're just smacking a piece of metal until it remembers its one job. Feels like you're performing tech support on a stubborn ghost. The manual for that fix is probably just a drawing of a caveman hitting a rock.