Flea market find in Columbus had a stuck shutter, turned out to be old grease

Went to that big flea market off I-71 last Saturday and grabbed a beat-up Canonet for 20 bucks. Shutter was completely frozen at slow speeds but fine at 1/500. Took it apart and the grease on the escapement had turned into basically candle wax after 40 years. A little naphtha soak and light oil on the pivots and it's ticking like new. Has anyone else run into that old grease turning solid? Seems like every fixed lens rangefinder from the 70s has the same problem.

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victor_carter5121d agoTop Commenter

Forty years of grease turning into candle wax sounds about right. That's just what happens when cameras sit in a basement or a closet and nobody touches them for a couple decades. You got lucky it was just the escapement and not a full CLA job. Half the fun of these old rangefinders is seeing what weird goop has taken over the internals. Next time you'll probably find a dead spider or a hair stuck in the shutter blades. But hey, for 20 bucks you basically stole a working camera. Now go shoot a roll of cheap film and see if the light meter is even close to being right.