Remember when you could just pull a shutter curtain back into place with a toothpick?

I was fixing an old Nikon FM2 last week, the shutter was hanging up. Back in the day, a stuck curtain on a cloth shutter was often just a bit of grit. You could gently nudge it with a plastic pick and it would snap right. I tried that on this FM2 and it did nothing. After an hour, I finally got the nerve to take the top plate off. The problem was a tiny, worn plastic gear in the timing train, not the curtain at all. I had a parts body from a thrift store find, so I swapped the gear. It took me three tries to get the spring tension right, but it works like new now. Makes you miss the simple fixes. Has anyone else run into this specific gear failure on the FM2?

3 comments

3 Comments

king.lisa3mo ago

Oh man, that's way past my pay grade. I once tried to fix a squeaky hinge with cooking spray (it was a disaster, don't ask). Taking off a top plate sounds like hero-level stuff to me. Glad you had a parts body and figured out the spring tension, that's seriously impressive.

paul_morgan3mo ago

Watched a buddy try to fix his doorbell and accidentally disconnect his whole security system.

nathan_webb2mo ago

Hah, @king.lisa that cooking spray story hits home. It's wild how a simple fix can spiral so fast. I see it all the time where people dive into a small project and suddenly they're in way over their head, like your buddy with the security system. Makes you respect the pros who actually know what they're doing, right?