Cloth Shutter Repair

[pbgrant01]

There are lots of DIY solutions for clothshutter pinholes and light leaks. I'd like to offer an addendum to use of the liquid electrical tape approach. Not pretty but can work. (1) Shine an LED light into camera body (2) Use a Decocolor Liquid Silver Pen to lightly mark holes. Don't apply much pressure Ushida 200-C#SLV (3) Very lighly apply liquid electrical tape (e.g Starbrite brand). Applicator of fine brush. Let dry 24 hrs. Reapply if needed. If the alternative is to throw camera in trashbin or spend $$$ w/ prof repair above value of older orphan camera worth a try.

 

[Coldkennels]

There's a couple of problems with this, most notably that it's a temporary fix. Someone did this to my IIIf before I bought it back in 2012, and it finally failed on a trip to France back in 2022; I had two entire rolls with a small white spot in the bottom right of the frame. Absolutely gutted.

The other issue is that you're increasing the weight of one shutter curtain which can, in some cases, throw off the exposures. I suspect the reason said IIIf was constantly having issues with uneven exposures was due to this added weight.

It's worth having replacement shutter curtains made if you know someone who can do it, especially if it's a camera you really love and want to keep for a long, long time.

 

[pbgrant01]

Thanks for the follow-up. Point certainly taken, A cautionary tale to be sure, Spend the money for replacement curtin if you have and return on spending is there given worth of camera.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Yea, nothing new...

Liquid tape works if it is vertical cracks and cloth is still present.

But if it is a hole from WO lens, just cut a patch from new shutter cloth. Sparrow on ebay used to sell single-sided and double sided rubber layers. Use single sided and pliobond glue.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

There's a couple of problems with this, most notably that it's a temporary fix. Someone did this to my IIIf before I bought it back in 2012, and it finally failed on a trip to France back in 2022; I had two entire rolls with a small white spot in the bottom right of the frame. Absolutely gutted.

The other issue is that you're increasing the weight of one shutter curtain which can, in some cases, throw off the exposures. I suspect the reason said IIIf was constantly having issues with uneven exposures was due to this added weight.

It's worth having replacement shutter curtains made if you know someone who can do it, especially if it's a camera you really love and want to keep for a long, long time.

I'm mechanical engineer by diploma. But on top of it 🙂 I also repaired shutter cloths and replaced as well.

The reason why your IIIf was getting uneven exposures has nothing to do with no weight added by the liquid tape which replaced missing rubber.

Most likely you have purchased something which was needed deep CLA. This is most common reason for uneven exposures and sometimes sloppy replacement of curtains as well 🙂
Purchasing camera with temporary fix and using it for ten years without permanent fix, CLA? is no love indeed.

 

[Coldkennels]

Purchasing camera with temporary fix and using it for ten years without permanent fix, CLA? is no love indeed.

It was serviced at least twice in that time (maybe three times - I forget). The first "service" involved the shutter being very heavily over-tensioned to power through the old grease instead of a proper overhaul; I wasn't impressed, and I'll never use Aperture in London again.

Also, no one in that period even mentioned the shutter had been patched. I only found out when I took the shutter crate off myself after seeing the repeated spot on frame after frame and saw the crumbling old liquid electrical tape that hadn't been mentioned by the "technicians" who'd worked on the camera before; doubly not impressed.

 

[WoodallP]

I like the cloth patch idea suggested above; I had had similar thoughts myself as it will probably last longer that any sort of gloop, though I have had sucess with black acrylic paint.

The downside of the patch idea is that you have to have shutter cloth, and if you are buying that then why not change the shutter 🙂 From my experience an opening shutter isn’t too hard, closing ones are trickier as position is more important.

Funny thing is that for all the talk of curtains there is little talk of ribbons and they can be a problem too.

 

[johnf04]

I tried repairing a shutter once with liquid electrical tape - but the curtain was too stiff to work properly. I ended up replacing the curtain. On older SLR cameras with non instant return mirrors, it's the second curtain which fails, probably from exposure to light and heat.

 

[WoodallP]

I tried repairing a shutter once with liquid electrical tape - but the curtain was too stiff to work properly. I ended up replacing the curtain. On older SLR cameras with non instant return mirrors, it's the second curtain which fails, probably from exposure to light and heat.

This is a good point; there are other factors aside from the curtains themselves which affect the level of damage.

For instance, having infinity lock may make you “park” your lens more often, thus better focussing the sun. However a collapsed lens is less risk. Wide angle lenses are more of a risk than long ones as the sun is focussed on a smaller area.

I think I have just managed to convince myself not to buy a Summicron 35 8 element 🙂 and I didn’t even need my bank manager’s help!