My Canonet smells

wintoid

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I bought a Canonet off eBay to find out how I felt about manual focusing a rangefinder. When it arrived I noticed it smells pretty horrible.

I've removed the old light seals completely and replaced them, so it's not the light seals that smell. I'm wondering exactly how to clean it, and where the smell is likely to be coming from. Anyone have any ideas?
 
What does it smell like?
I have received cameras that reek of smoke. It is very diffficult to get a stench like that to go away completely. A careful wipe over (avoiding all glass) with a lint free cloth with a touch of Pledge (or similar) sprayed on the cloth (not sprayed on the camera) helps, but doesn't completely remove the smell.
 
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Yeah it could be smoke... it's a musty dusty make-you-sneeze sort of smell. I'll try some Pledge and see how I get on. Thanks Andy!
 
ALL my older cameras smell or smelled when i got them.
My rolleicord smelled the worse, smoke and sour acidic smell. After a few months of sitting out in open space it was mostly gone.
My canonet smelled mostly because its everready case - when i took it out for a while it got better.
The everready of the kiev smells unsupportable, and it is sticky at touch. I will throw it out.
The newest acquisition, the contax iia, smells bad as well - smoke mixed with something else. It was in use of a wedding photo agency, i've heard, and in the last 2 years sitting in an old guy's 'vitrine'. I suspect it soon will lose its smell, especially if i replace the leather which is well worn anyway.

Moral - don't worry, use the canonet and it will get smelless.
 
With all cameras I get smelly or not, I take a soft toothbrush and some good cleaner like Fantastik spray and clean the camera leather, vinyl whatever a couple times then dry it off. The bottom and top plates are cleaned also. I clean the inside with a qtip and alcohol and compressed air. if it still stinks leave it outside if you can for a while in the shade. Oh if its your case, clean it too but it may have mold growing on/in it too. Dont for get the neckstrap also.
 
Then stop smelling it!

Ok, maybe that's a bit hard to do for something you hold up to your face. Dilute rubbing alcohol always worked for me.
 
If it's smoke, here's a tip that worked for me: get a ziploc bag, and a fabric softener sheet (those used for the clothes drier). Put camera and sheet (or two, if the camera is fetid) and seal; leave inside for about two days.

If it's a very very bad case, put the bag (with the camera and sheet inside, of course) in the fridge; make sure it is sealed very well. You may want to leave it there overnight. When you want to take it out, don't take it out right away. If you must inspect it, do so very quickly and put back inside. When you are ready to take it out from the fridge, take the bag out, but leave everything inside the bag, sealed. Wait until its temperature has become the same as the room temperature. Why is this last step necessary? Condensation; if you take it out of the bag, water will condense inside and outside, potentially condensing in the electronics, between lens elements...many parts you don't want water in.

I wouldn't apply any chemicals to the camera.
 
The title to this thread made me laugh.

I've had very old books with a musty odor and was able to get rid of most of the odor by putting the book in a plastic bag with an open box of baking soda for a month. You would probably not want to use baking soda, lest any of it get into your camera, but charcoal brickettes also absorb odor and would not be a worry.
 
stinky cameras

stinky cameras

That would have to be the funniest post ever. Stinky Canonets. No one knows where it has been. Just imagine that something romantic happened to it in some far off place. Something malodorous and romantic.

Perhaps your olfactory aversion to the putrid Canonet will lead to a sort of love/hate relationship that will sprout unique artistic vision. The torturous experience of holding it so close to your nose will inspire the artist in you to come alive with . . . irritation maybe. . . I know that something shockingly unpleasant often stirs creative emotion in me.

Painstakingly, slowly, deliberately, lovingly with a cue-tip and tweezers and a jewler's glass, you will massage the stench from its bones.

I see it. . . you are sitting in a small room. Maybe a very large room made small by the close glow of the light over your head, sort of a dim spot of orange in the blackness of the room, and you are huddled over the camera breathing shallowly through your mouth, nose plugs stuffed assertively in your nostrils, sweat running down your face, guiding the cue-tip over the camera's stinking surfaces slowly and intensely. When you have finished, you bound into the darkness, ripping the nose plugs from your nostrils, throwing down the jewler's glasses, burst through a door into the brightness of daytime, into the cool air, and press the camera to your nose lustily inhaling its fresh scent - really bringing its new cleaness into your lungs fully. Almost like a virgin it lies brilliant and stenchless in your weary hands.
 
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my crown graphic smells too

my crown graphic smells too

it smells like a basement full of old cigar butts and mold.

This is a bump, more or less, because this thread is just so hilarious. I'm laughing still, and i read it at least half an hour ago.

I had a great idea for cleaning it, but after writing a long description of the process, I came to see how truly stupid my idea was. I will spare you.
 
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