Old timer told me to use lighter fluid to clean a shutter...

A retired repair guy at the local camera swap said lighter fluid works better than alcohol for cleaning sticky shutter blades. Tried it on a broken Pentax K1000 and it actually dissolved the old gunk perfectly without leaving residue. Has anyone else heard of this trick or am I just lucky it didn't melt anything?

3 comments

3 Comments

lee_grant971mo ago

Buddy of mine used lighter fluid on an old Nikon F2 and swore by it. Said it worked way better than the alcohol he'd been using for years.

casey_barnes1mo ago

swore by it" is the part that gets me, @lee_grant97. I had a buddy who tried lighter fluid on his old Pentax Spotmatic back in the day. He was COMPLETELY convinced it was the secret sauce, said it left no residue and made the shutter sound "crisper." Then one day he used it on a sticky aperture blade and the thing locked up solid. He spent the whole weekend trying to unstuck it with more lighter fluid, making it worse. Now he just uses the proper stuff and jokes about how he almost turned his camera into a explosive.

park.troy1mo ago

@casey_barnes I basically did the same thing to a cheap rangefinder once, stripped the shutter gears and everything.