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Last update on May 16th, 2008 |
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Installing Light Seals
The most important aspect of installation is Clean. Clean. Clean. The old residue from the door channels, mirror cushion area, door hinge area and anywhere else you are replacing the seals. The finest adhesive in the world will not stick to that sticky, gooey residue that was once a quality light seal. Proper installation will give you thousands of light tight exposures. I have found the best solvent/cleaner is Naphtha or mineral spirits. It is readily available, loosens and dissolves the old adhesive and foam easily. Along with solvent, it is nice to have a pair of quality #3 or #5 tweezers, q-tips, toothpicks, Exacto knife, dental pick and Kimwipes (or paper towels). Locate a clean and ventilated work area and put some solvent in a small container (1-2oz). The easiest way to apply the solvent for me is to take my tweezers and put the points into the solvent. Then squeeze the points together and withdraw the tweezers. Capillary action should have the solvent in between the points. Now you can easily direct a drop or less of solvent exactly where you want it. Practice a few times until you can easily fill the tweezers. Apply even smaller amounts by dipping toothpicks into the solvent. The first seals I remove are the door channels. I fill my #5 tweezers points with solvent and carefully moisten the foam in the channels. You must be more careful around the counter actuation lever opening (upper right hand corner door channel on many cameras) as you do not want to apply solvent to the interior of the camera. After a couple of minutes the residue can be easily removed by pushing it into a pile with a toothpick. The residue will just pile up in the channel and can be picked and wiped out. Wrapping a Kimwipe around the tweezers, dipping that in solvent works quite well in the channels also. I know of technicians who prefer an old toothbrush and would brush out the softened foam. Clean. Clean. Clean. Next I clean the door hinge seal area. Here you can lightly moisten q-tips to apply solvent and then wipe and clean away the residue. Last, I clean the mirror cushion area. Here you must be extremely careful. If the focusing screen is easily removable, remove it. Make sure that no pieces of the old cushion fall onto the focusing screen. If any anything contacts the focusing screen it will most likely damage it permanently. I will carefully pick and scrape at the remaining cushion towards the lens opening. Many cushions are installed with peal and stick adhesive. Sometimes if you are lucky, it will just peel off. The replacement seals are cut to exact
lengths. Stretching of the door channel seals during installation and around
corners will result in some left over at the end which can be trimmed with
scissors, an Exacto knife or razor blade. Some door hinge, mirror cushion and other seals can not be stretched during installation because of the type of adhesive. I would say for a beginner the door hinge seal should be installed first. This is a rather short piece and can be handled easily. Good luck. Gray
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