Replacing light seals--my technique

[Bill58]

After learning a lot (trial-and-error) from my many old RFs, here is my two cents worth. Finding it impossible to get the foam w/ the adhesive already on it in the narrow (or any) channels or to use foam w/o adhesive and add adhesive, (1) I take foam w/ NO adhesive and glue it to some black paper w/ 3M spray (heavy coat) adhesive, (2) then cut into strips to fit channel using a ruler and exacto or box cutter (sharp!) knife, (3) then slightly thin ordinary general purpose (not white glue/ Elmer's) household glue in a paper cup w/ lacquer thiner and brush into the channel w/ a nail polish brush, (4) then use any sharp point to put foam/paper laminate into channel. Works great!

P.s. I get my 1mm foam from microtools.

Now looking for some company who'll pay me $100,000/ year to do this.

 

[Kim Coxon]

Hi,
If you are talking about what I think you are talking about 😕 There is no need for adhesive. If you get one of the Kits from Jon Goodman, a member here and much much better value than Microtools, It contains a precut set of strips to fit in the chaneels which work perfectly with no glue. I haven't had one come loose despite having used about 40-50 strips.😉

Kim

 

[lwfkc]

How do you remove the old seals, especially when they have turned to mush. Do you have to use a solvent to get a clean surface for the new seals. TIA

Larry

 

[mpt600]

Jon Goodman's kit will have tools included to remove the old seals and full instructions as to how to go about it. He'll probably have instructions for your specific camera as well. They really are excellent kits, I can't recommend them highly enough.

 

[Bill58]

The best thing to use to remove the old foam and adhesive I've found is lighter fluid on a Q-tip and sometimes a dental probe for those tight places . It won't harm the plastic.

 

[zuikologist]

I can vouch for Jon's kits. They came with instructions for various cameras. There is a wooden tool for removing the old seals. I imagine something like a bamboo barbecue stick would also work quite well. It does take some patience and time.

 

[Richard C]

http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/sealreplacement.html

 

[dmr]

How do you remove the old seals, especially when they have turned to mush. Do you have to use a solvent to get a clean surface for the new seals. TIA

That is the worst part of the job!

Jon does include a little wooden tool for doing this with his kit, but I started removing mine while his kit was in the mail to me.

I used a flat-blade jewlers screwdriver, a dental explorer, q-tips, and alcohol and Ronsonol as solvents, plus canned air and countless paper towels. IIRC it took over an hour to get them totally out and cleaned up and involved scraping, soaking, scrubbing, scraping, soaking, scrubbing. Rinse, repeat.

With the solvent, much of the old seals will break down into a black gooey sludge that sticks to anything. You need to be sure that none of this gets into any mechanism in the rear of the camera.

I found installing the new seals to be quite easy compared to getting the old ones out.

 

[Kim Coxon]

With the larger "stick on" sections such as for the QL17, getting it clean is important. When doing the channels with the strips, getting all the old muck out is less important. Leaving a small amout of residue in there does help keep the new strip in place. 😉

Kim