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The way people treat old shutter blades drives me up a wall
I mean, I get it, they look delicate and you don't want to break them. But the number of folks I see just blasting them with canned air to 'clean' them is wild. I had a guy bring in a Pentax 6x7 last week where the blades were bent because he used a high pressure blast trying to get a tiny dust speck off. That's a $300 fix, easy, maybe more. You have to use a soft brush, like a sable hair one, and move with the blade, not against it. The metal is so thin that any sideways force can crease it. I learned this the hard way on my first repair job ten years ago, and I still see it all the time. What's the weirdest 'cleaning' damage you've had to fix on a shutter?
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grantw321mo ago
Just when you think the canned air thing is the peak of bad ideas, someone breaks out the WD-40. It's like watching someone try to fix a watch with a hammer. That stuff turns into glue in a month, and then you've got a fancy paperweight. Some folks see a tiny moving part and their brain just screams "drown it in chemicals".
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faith_king1mo ago
Yeah, and it's not just the glue thing. The propellant in the can can blast grit deeper into the mechanism or force moisture into places it shouldn't be. You're basically power-washing delicate parts with the wrong chemical. It fixes nothing and just makes the real repair ten times harder for whoever has to clean up the mess.
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the_sam1mo ago
Ugh, that's brutal. Saw a guy try to 'lube' a sticky leaf shutter with WD-40. Not even joking. It gummed up everything and ate the blade coatings. Total write-off. Some people just see a mechanical thing and think more oil is always the answer.
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dianaanderson1mo ago
Honestly, what did he think WD-40 was gonna do? That stuff's a solvent, not a real lube. For a sticky shutter, a tiny drop of lighter fluid on a toothpick to break up the old gunk works way better. Then you can use a proper watch oil if it really needs it.
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