Showerthought: a camera sitting unused for 30 years may not even need a full rebuild, and the repair tech in Portland told me why

Nancy Cooper · 2026-10-02T18:25:03.554621+00:00

I dropped off a customer's Pentax Spotmatic last month thinking it was a total teardown job, since the mirror was stuck and the shutter sounded like a dead click. The tech at the counter in Portland pulled the baseplate, poked at the curtain drum for maybe 90 seconds, and said something that stuck with me: old cameras with original grease often have a single stuck point, not a worn-out mechanism. He told me the grease hardens at about 1 spot per 10 years of sitting, so a 30 year shelf life usually means 3 stiff spots max. He freed the second curtain with a drop of naphtha and a few manual cycles, no disassembly past the baseplate, and charged the customer $65 instead of the $280 full rebuild I had quoted. That used camera came back to life in 20 minutes of actual work. How many cameras have you guys sent to a full teardown when a stuck point was all it needed?

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Showerthought: a camera sitting unused for 30 years may not even need a full rebuild, and the repair tech in Portland told me why | Camera Repairers - Babble Community