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Rant: A customer brought in a Leica M3 with a shutter that sounded like gravel
This was about three months ago, a guy walked into my home shop with this beautiful old M3. He said it just came back from another shop but the shutter sounded wrong. I opened it up and found they'd used some kind of thick grease on the slow speed escapement, gumming it all up. It took me two full hours with a ton of q-tips and lighter fluid to clean it all out, piece by piece. The worst part was seeing tiny metal shavings mixed in, like someone forced a gear. I got it running smooth again, but it was a real mess. I'm still annoyed thinking about the state it was in. Has anyone else seen a repair that made you wonder what the last person was thinking?
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diana2387mo ago
Metal shavings in a Leica? That's just painful. I had a Nikon F come in packed with the wrong oil, took forever to clean.
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davis.iris7mo ago
My buddy had a Hasselblad come through his work with a focusing screen that was just glued in place. Not the right adhesive, just regular super glue all over the edges. He said it looked like a kid's art project gone wrong, with dried drips on the mirror box. Getting that screen out without wrecking the prism was a nightmare.
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the_john6mo ago
A guy I know had a Rolleiflex where someone used epoxy to "fix" a loose taking lens. It wasn't even centered, just a huge blob. He had to soak the whole front standard in acetone for a week and still almost cracked the casting.
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