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Watched a guy in a parking lot in Boise ruin his grandfather's Pentax with one wrong move, please learn from him
So I was at this camera swap in Boise last weekend, killing time at a folding table when I see a younger guy pull out this gorgeous old Pentax Spotmatic that he clearly just inherited. He's showing it off to some friends, all proud, and then he decides to "clean it up" right there in the lot. He busts out a can of compressed air and starts blasting the mirror box and the shutter curtains from like two inches away. I started walking over because I could already see where this was headed but I was too far. That canned air shot freezing propellant straight onto the shutter curtain and the mirror, and when he fired it the curtain was sticking and shrieking. Dude's face just dropped. Once that propellant hits a cloth curtain or the mirror damper it can leave residue that grabs dust like glue, plus the cold can crack old lubricant loose. Please never use canned air inside an open body. Get a real bulb blower for like 8 bucks and keep the nozzle outside the mount. Has anyone here ever saved a sticky curtain after something like this, or is that body basically a parts camera now?
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uma_lopez10d ago
Wondering if the guy even tried a proper flush or if he just panicked and kept firing it, because the fix really depends on how fast he acted. Tbh a sticky cloth curtain can sometimes come back if you soak the rails with lighter fluid and work the wind lever slow, but if the propellant froze the old lube into gunk it's usually a goner. Did he get any of that residue on the mirror itself, or was it just the curtain?
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