No body wants to use sandpaper...? I have used very fine, like 600 grit, and it worked great, just polished/smoothed out any corrosion on the piston and sleeve. And it can't be the "worst thing" because a metal file or dynamite would be far worse.Sand paper is the worst thing to use...
The problem as I see it is that the pistons I've seen have been none too tight, anyway, and sanding can only move that situation in one direction, looser. There always seems to be a problem with T exposures and a leaky system, so why on earth would you want to make it worse?
Also, as noted, loose pistons won't stay up like they should. When I considered this, I noted that the piston appears to have been made none too smooth originally, when it would have been very easy to make a smooth one, so I figured the manufacturer had made this intentional choice based on experience with his own product, and I wasn't going to do anything to undo what the maker had experienced was necessary, nor to mess up his original specs, as much as I could.
So in that sense, sandpaper, a file, dynamite--they all do about the same thing: unnecessarily drag the item away from the maker's original specs, with no apparent reason to do so.
Thanks, but I'd rather just watch:
Large format: http://flickr.com/michaeldarnton
Mostly 35mm: http://flickr.com/mdarnton
You want digital, color, etc?: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stradofear
I take them apart, clean every surface spic and span, (usually means fine steel wool inside to knock off any old corrosion) then I wax everything and polish the waxed surfaces, and presto change-o! I clean the piston with fine steel wool and solvent. Clean the bore with Q-tips inside. Wax the piston and buff with a rag. You'll be amazed at how effortlessly it can do it's job. Take a pencil and write the date you serviced it, so 40 years from now, somebody will have a good laugh.
never mind
Just CLA'd a couple of #6s, one with two pistons and one with just one piston but with the instantaneous pin. The double piston shutter just needed a quick wipe and an adjustment to the flash synch microswitch. The single piston shutter wasn't running well at all due to the effects of oil in all the wrong places. I wiped up all of the oil, including some from the piston, and then used brass polish to clean off some fine corrosion on the inside surfaces for the shutter. The piston was given a quick polish to make sure all the oil was gone and then left alone. The inside of the shutter was given a thin coat of bicycle chain wax (like I would for the slides on a grafmatic) while the blades were just wiped clean. Reassembled it all and it now works nicely.
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