Light Seals

[FredrickSummers]

I got a Wista SP that came in yesterday and its in the need of light seals. I had ready about "foamies" at Michaels being used for this, but my local Michales store didn't have anything by that name, but did have the sheet foam that looks to be about the proper thickness. If I can't find a better solution I'm going to cut the seals from it. The two worst ones are the ones that the bellows seal to. The one in the front standard is round, so I don't think the foam strips would work at all and the rear is a square-ish octagon (4 sides are much longer, like a square you cut the corners off) which I could also see as problematic using the foam strips as well.
Does anyone have any experience with making their own light seals they could share?

Also, the felt strips where the film holder goes is OK, but a bit ragged. I cannot find this felt at all though, all the light seals I find are foam and I don't think foam would hold up long/well to the wear that goes in that part of the camera. Anywhere that sells these?

I'm doing a CLA on my own on it right now as the parts were a little gummy anyway, but this is all giving me a huge opportunity to really get to know this camera and make it "mine", hopefully its all nice and smooth once I get it all together!

Thank you all!

[LabRat]

Even the light grey foam tape from your home store will seal well once it fully compressed... Same with the open foam A/C filter material from the same place... What's nice about is this stuff will fill smaller gaps not much thicker than some papers, where thicker/heavier materials won't compress down enough...

I was at the produce section of my supermarket, and there were a couple of long black sheets of PVC(?) thin foam padding that was used on the bottom of crates boxes of oranges that I quickly rolled up, and put in my cart... Check-out girl didn't bat an eye at it when I was paying for the other stuff... Would make good seals for backs, etc...

Steve K

[Chris7521]

I got a Wista SP that came in yesterday and its in the need of light seals. I had ready about "foamies" at Michaels being used for this, but my local Michales store didn't have anything by that name, but did have the sheet foam that looks to be about the proper thickness. If I can't find a better solution I'm going to cut the seals from it. The two worst ones are the ones that the bellows seal to. The one in the front standard is round, so I don't think the foam strips would work at all and the rear is a square-ish octagon (4 sides are much longer, like a square you cut the corners off) which I could also see as problematic using the foam strips as well.

Does anyone have any experience with making their own light seals they could share?

Also, the felt strips where the film holder goes is OK, but a bit ragged. I cannot find this felt at all though, all the light seals I find are foam and I don't think foam would hold up long/well to the wear that goes in that part of the camera. Anywhere that sells these?



I'm doing a CLA on my own on it right now as the parts were a little gummy anyway, but this is all giving me a huge opportunity to really get to know this camera and make it "mine", hopefully its all nice and smooth once I get it all together!

Thank you all!http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_flok.htm Great replacement for the felt. Way more than you need but it's only $19 w/free shipping. Good quality and very sticky adhesive. About 1mm thick.

[FredrickSummers]

Thank you both for your help. I completely disassembled, cleaned, and relubed the camera and installed new light seals over the past two days. Actually was a quite fun project and I already feel somewhat connected to the camera and know it inside and out and I haven't even mounted a lens to it yet! Its all silky smooth now and I used the foam from the hobby store, I'm pretty sure the seals to the bellows are now even water tight! After cleaning the felt they actually don't look that bad yet, so I am going to hold off replacing those for now.