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A retired machinist taught me about shutter timing on a bench in Portland
I was fixing a beat up Nikon F2 at a swap meet in Portland last spring. An older guy sits down next to me and says, 'you know those shutter speeds are just springs wearing out, right?' He then showed me how the spring tension changes after 40 years of use. Took me about 20 minutes to adjust the main spring following his method. Has anyone else had a random stranger drop some repair wisdom on you like that?
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smith.anna2mo ago
Heard about this last year from a camera repair blog I stumbled on. Someone wrote that old timers used to adjust shutter springs with nothing but a little screwdriver and a steady hand because the factory spec was just a starting point after all those years. They said it's like tuning a watch but with less tiny parts. That Portland guy sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing. Makes me wonder how many other old tricks are just sitting out there at swap meets waiting to be passed on.
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jamesroberts2mo ago
That old machinist wisdom is PRICELESS. Some retired watchmaker showed me the same trick on a Pentax Spotmatic at a flea market in Denver.
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