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I finally fixed a jammed shutter on an old Canon A-1
I've been tinkering with this Canon A-1 for weeks now. The shutter would just lock up after a few shots and I couldn't figure out why. I was ready to give up and call it a parts camera. Then I stumbled on a forum post from like 2018 where someone mentioned that the little foam bumper on the mirror box can get sticky and cause issues. I checked mine with a flashlight and sure enough, the foam was all gooey. I scraped it off with a toothpick and some alcohol, put it back together, and it fired off twenty shots in a row no problem. It wasn't a complicated fix at all, just cleaning out old decayed foam. Has anyone else run into this with older Canon gear?
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sam_cooper4mo ago
Read that same post a while back and it saved me from tossing a broke AE-1 Program. That foam turns to straight molasses after a few decades and gums up everything it touches. Good call scraping it out, that stuff is always the culprit.
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sanchez.ivan4mo ago
Wait wait wait, @sam_cooper you're telling me that stuff literally turns into MOLASSES? Like the sticky syrup kind? I thought it just got crusty and fell apart but holy crap that's way worse. Now I'm paranoid about every old camera I own with foam in it. Gonna have to check my old Minolta before it becomes a gooey nightmare inside. That's genuinely disgusting to think about.
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