I finally took a mentor's advice on cleaning old shutter blades

I had this old Canonet I was working on last month and the shutter blades were sticking bad. Usually I just blast them with lighter fluid and hope for the best but a guy named Dave at the camera swap meet told me I was making it worse. He said I needed to take the whole shutter assembly apart and clean each blade individually with a soft brush and naptha. I thought he was being extra but after fighting with that Canonet for three days I finally caved. Took me about 2 hours to get the blades out and clean them one by one. Put it back together and the thing fires perfectly now. Has anyone else found that taking the extra time on disassembly actually saves time in the long run?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy_murphy851mo ago

Did you find it was easier to get everything lined back up than you expected? lol

simonp471mo ago

Found out the hard way that being patient with that disassembly also saved me from scratching the blades, especially if they're the thin metal kind that warp easy if you just blast them clean.