PSA: That guy who brought a vintage Leica to my bench last Tuesday

A gentleman came into my shop in Portland with a Leica IIIf that he said just needed a shutter clean. I opened it up and found the curtains had been replaced with what looked like cut-up rubber glove material. He said he did it himself after watching a YouTube video. I had to break the news that his fix actually ruined the timing gears. Has anyone else seen people trying to DIY their own shutter curtain replacements lately?

2 comments

2 Comments

wadeyoung21d ago

That rubber glove thing is wild but honestly not the weirdest DIY I've seen lately. Had a guy bring in a Nikon F2 with the mirror glued in place with what looked like hot glue from a craft store. Said he watched a video on mirror alignment and it just didn't stick right. The shutter curtain replacement thing is getting way too common now. People see one tutorial and think they can take apart a mechanical camera with no experience. The problem is those old Leica shutters are super delicate and the timing gears are easy to mess up if you don't know what you're doing. A good clean might have cost a couple hundred bucks but now that camera needs a full overhaul which is way more expensive.

the_john21d ago

Man, that rubber glove thing is just wild. I had a buddy try to fix his old Canonet with electrical tape once because he saw a guy on YouTube do it for his car's dashboard. He figured it was the same stuff and ended up gumming up the whole shutter mechanism. Now the camera's sitting in a drawer and he won't even look at it. People really don't get that those old cameras are like fine watches inside, not something you can patch up with garage supplies.