Had a vintage Leica M3 shutter curtain tear right in front of a client last Tuesday

We were in my shop in Portland, and the customer was picking it up after a full CLA. I opened the back to show the clean film path, and a tiny rip I'd missed near the take-up spool caught and grew across the whole curtain. I had to eat the cost of a donor curtain from a parts body and redo the whole job over two days. Anyone ever have a simple check turn into a major setback like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

susan_ward2mo ago

Oh man, that's the worst kind of luck. It's like the shutter curtain waited for the perfect, most embarrassing moment to give up. At least it happened in front of you and not after the client shot a once-in-a-lifetime roll of film. Still, having to redo a full CLA over a tiny rip is a special kind of pain.

nina_sullivan612mo ago

Ugh, I read somewhere that old rubberized curtains just rot from the inside out.

margaret_singh11mo ago

Happens all the time with those old rubberized curtains, right? They look fine on the surface but the rubber degrades and turns into this sticky, crumbling mess. You'd think they'd last forever but no, they just dry out and crack. And once that rubber goes, the whole curtain is basically done for, can't fix it. It's like the materials just give up on you eventually.