A lady in my shop taught me a trick for stiff focus rings

She brought in an old Pentax K1000 with a lens that wouldn't turn, and she said, 'Try a drop of lighter fluid on a cotton swab, just on the seam.' I was worried it would damage things, but it worked perfectly to loosen the old grease. Has anyone else used this method on vintage manual lenses?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_hugo1mo ago

Lighter fluid, the official WD-40 for people who aren't afraid of a little risk. Next she'll tell you to clean the viewfinder with a potato and fix the light meter by yelling at it. Old camera repair is just controlled arson with extra steps.

parker_park81mo ago

This kind of thinking is everywhere now, not just in camera repair. People treat everything like it's disposable and forget that most things can be fixed with a little common sense and some basic stuff you already have around the house. My granddad used to fix his tractor with baling wire and a hammer, and nobody called that risky, they called it being practical. Now we throw away a toaster because the cord gets frayed, when a roll of electrical tape would do the trick.

-1

kim19119d ago

Right, the tractor story really hits home. That "common sense" part is the key, but it got lost when companies stopped designing things for people to actually get inside them.