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Thought I'd fixed a sticky shutter on a Canon AE-1, ended up making it worse
I tried cleaning the shutter blades on a Canon AE-1 with a tiny bit of lighter fluid on a q-tip, like a guy on YouTube said. Problem is, I let it pool up a little and it seeped onto the mirror bumper foam, which then melted and glued the mirror up. Now I've got a bigger mess and a $60 repair bill from a shop in Portland. Anyone else had a simple fix go sideways like that?
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eva90823d ago
You mentioned the YouTube guy's method, but here's what nobody talks about. Those old foam seals break down different depending on the year and climate the camera was stored in. Your AE-1 might have had a different foam compound than the one in his video, and the lighter fluid just ate through it way faster.
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sagep1923d ago
For the longest time I thought lighter fluid was a safe fix for everything... this definitely changed my mind. The foam in my Canon FTb from the 70s turned into straight goo the second it touched any solvent, and the mirror just stuck there like glue. Realized later that cameras stored in humid places like the Pacific Northwest have way more degraded foam than ones from dry climates. That YouTube guy probably filmed his in Arizona or something, not Portland where everything's damp. So yeah, the age and storage of the camera matter way more than people let on.
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