There is a wise saying: needs must, closely followed by: one must do. I understand this as: one has to make do with what’s available at a given time, and that the necessity of the thing is imperative. Been in this spot for a more than I care to remember number of occasions and I have learned my lesson. Graduating from the school of hard knocks somehow prepares for this sort of action, in all ways of life.
What I have never been and most probably I shall never be is a camera repairer. My passion for these beautiful, intricate, full of clockwork and mechanical wonders never went beyond using them, for better or worse. Gummed-up shutter? Exercise it or pour the minutest drop of Zippo liquid into the recesses of the thing. If this doesn’t work (doh!) send it away to the repair shop. Fogged lens? To the shop. Speeds, apertures, what have you? That’s right, to the shop. Battery related issues? You guessed. When it comes to repair a camera, I have two left hands. And this is all right, for those guys repairing the cameras need to make an honest coin too, why should I rob him of his bread?
A Nikon F2 of mine had an accident, years ago; some moron pushed his thumb into the shutter curtain. Crimpled it a bit, but the foil resisted, and for a good number of years the curtain worked perfectly fine. The cosmetics of it was a bit annoyingly disturbed, but as it did its job, no complaints. I shot a wheelbarrow of films with it.
However, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the negatives comes out with a spot of light on them, in the same place. Initially just a pin prick size, and not on all of the frames. I could not figure out what was the cause: the seals or the shutter curtain. In the second negative, the size of the light spot was larger, and in some frame even had a reflection around it, like a wave or light ripples of sorts. That was when I realized it’s the curtain, to my despair. Nikon titanium foil curtains are the pride of these cameras, but also their death sentence if something happens to them. These three pics here show the development of the problem.
Why didn’t I had same problem in all the frames? I believe it has something to do with the shutter speed and aperture, but I am not a technician so I leave it at that. I am probably right, but do not take my word for it.
I also run the light test: raising the mirror, the light showed a very small crack, perhaps 2 mm in length, on the bottom right side of the curtain. So what I thought to be a small hole, it proved to be a tiny crack.
My first thought was to call Sover Wong and humbly ask for a place in the next slot. But the next slot is 45 cameras only and starts in June 2025. Not good. Asked my usual repair guy, a very good one: his reply was that he can try but he cannot guarantee the camera will function for the foreseeable future. And then, greatly annoyed and upset, decided to have a go at it myself, considering these options:
- gaffer tape, which I did not have
- black paint, no idea of what type
- black silk patch, but as far as I knew this was valid for cloth shutter curtains
- liquid rubber, no idea how this would fix onto the metallic curtain
Oh, and there was some suggestion to use superglue to fix this. I know I am not the shiniest penny in the jar, but not even I can be that dumb. So, this one didn’t even made it on the possible options list.
Once all these have been considered, I threw the options to the bin. Some I did not have, and those I had access to, I was not familiar with the repair steps or process. I needed something that will adhere to the surface of the foil, be black and to suffer bending when dry. My sole option was to try and mix up some Gorilla glue with a few grains of black toner powder and stick that compound onto the foil, hoping to cling there for dear life. That mixture I usually employ when I need to weld some broken pens or such.
And then, looking the thing up on the wide web, a small forum discussion mentioned something like acrylic paint. Those guys never mentioned if this worked, or what sort of acrylic paint it was. A-ha, there’s a solution, I said to myself, for acrylic paint is something that lives in my house on a permanent basis. And so enters the acrylic paint kit belonging to my better half. She is using this stuff to decorate stuff around the garden and house.
I raised the mirror of the camera, opened the back door and let it rest on my desk, took a very fine brush from my daughter’s kit and dabbed a pin prick stuff onto the curtain. Spread it even, and had another drop onto it, spreading it over the previous one. Did the same on the other side of the curtain, two drops, evenly spread.
Left it to dry for 24 hrs, then exercise the shutter for a minute or so. All looked good, and the light test showed no holes. It doesn’t look a very clean job, but I did what I could with my two left hands. My main concern now is adherence to the metal; if this goes all right, fingers crossed, perhaps I can still use this camera after all. Loaded a film in it, which is now at mid roll. Cannot wait to see if this thing went away.
All said and done, to be honest, I haven’t got any high hopes that this will hold indefinitely.