That old timer who told me to always bench test a shutter before installing it was spot on

A guy named Pete at the camera swap meet back in 2021 told me I was asking for trouble if I skipped the bench test. I was rebuilding a Nikon F2 and thought, nah, it's fine, I'll just drop it in the body. Well, the timing was off by like 15% and I had to pull the whole thing apart again. Took me an extra 2 hours to fix what I could have caught in 10 minutes. Has anyone else ignored advice like that and regretted it big time?

2 comments

2 Comments

jana_hart181mo ago

Ha! I had a buddy who rebuilt a Canon FTb and skipped bench testing the shutter. He was so jazzed to get it back together he didn't check, and the curtain dragged on the first frame, trashing a whole roll of vacation photos.

grace891mo ago

That old timer Pete knew his stuff. My first time with a Pentax Spotmatic I did the exact same thing, skipped the bench test because I was in a rush to get it back together for a weekend shoot. The mirror slap was off by a mile, I think the timing was like 20% slower than it should have been, and I completely missed focus on a whole roll of film I shot at a friend's wedding. Ended up having to tear down the whole camera again on a Monday night, which took forever because I kept losing those tiny screws. Now I have a dedicated bench test setup with a piece of frosted glass taped to the film rails, it saves me so much time and frustration.