Pinhole in Leica M6 curtain

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mudride

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Hi!

First of all, I'm a Swede so my english might not perfect 😉

I've got a Leica M6 in a good working condition, except for a small pinhole in the curtain. The hole is pretty small (you need a flash light to see it). Changing the curtain seems like a pretty expensive affair. Is there any DIY tricks? Do you think black acrylic paint would work?

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I've known people to swear by something called Liquid Electrical Tape. Whatever you use, you should apply only a minute quantity.

A single pin-hole may be just that -- or it may indicate a sort of "fabric fatigue" which will show up as more holes.
 
I will pay a visit at the local cam. service center on Thursday - maybe they can fix it. The pinhole looks like a small "burning" so my guess is that the pre. owner did not use his lens cap. 😉
 
Check with RFF'er Honus. IIRC, he used a commercially available product. I think it was Goop, and I think there's one for shoe repair (?). Anyway it's a viscous black rubbery substance and all you need is enough to cover the hole. It dries and is opaque.


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I've repaired cloth shutters on other cameras with the black rubber shoe glue. The stuff does not harden, is black and light tight. Just a drop smeared on with a tooth pick. It should work fine. If for some reason it doesn't (maybe because of different material) or no worse off then you are now.
 
My M2 got a pinhole in the curtain. I called the three best Leica repair people here in the U.S. and Canada. The first two told me to send it in for new curtains. The third one told me "just dab a little liquid electrical tape on it". I used a cotton swab with the cotton removed and applied the stuff to both sides of the curtain in several layers until I couldn't see light anymore. M2 has worked fine ever since. The exact brand is Brush-On Elecrical Tape. It shrinks and flattens a lot after it drys.
 
Whatever you use needs to be flexible when it dries - I have used black acylic mixed 50/50 with PVA adhesive - thinned down with a little water, applied sparingly and left to dry overnight. It has saved curtains for up to 5 years so far.

One other repair I have seen that seemed to last was to puch a small disk out of shutter curtain material (with an office stationery punch) and apply with rubber cement - that was on an old IIIa and had lasted for 15+ years
 
Scotch also makes a similar product, called Scotchcote Electrical Coating. Available in hardware or electrical supply stores. Should be avail in other brands as well. I'll bet that acrylic paint would work as well, but the issue w/ that is it dries hard, not flexible.

Whatever you use, and it certainly sounds like something you can do yourself judging by how small the hole is, make sure you use only a small amount! Let it dry completely if you need to put on another coat. I didn't address this issue and loaded it on when I patched my Fed 2 curtain. Now it won't work properly because the goop sort of bubbled up, and the curtain can't get past the camera's film gate opening. I'll have to try putting another shutter curtain on it next.
 
Lolts of different options. I have used liquid electrical tape, I have also used Pabeo Marbeling Ink (Black) which works fine too. Its available in craft stores. The latter is very thin but this can be useful for very small defects - I had a camera where the hole was so small it was invisible to the naked eye and I was unable to locate it accurately. The Pabeo could be brushed onto larger areas without affecting function of the curtain. People have aslo spoken of using the kind of ink or paint used to paint or print on T shirts if you can find it.
 
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I called a Leica authorized service center in Sweden. They said the camera needs a new curtain, at a cost of 10 000 sek (1400 US dollar). That's more than I paid for the whole camera (6 000 sek).

I think I'll go with the liquid electrical tape or acrylic paint. 🙂
 
My pinhole Leica was fixed at Rosenbergs AB in Sweden. Cost: 281 sek (~30usd).

So, now my Leica is fit for fight again. 🙂
 
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