taking apart a copal shutter

[james norman]

the aperture adjusting lever on my nikkor sw90 is loose and is easily knocked ou t of position while working. i am going to take the rear part of the shutter ap art to examine it and see what might be wrong, and figure out a way to stiffen u p the movement of the aperture lever. any advice on procedure, or "watch out fo r..." comments would be appreciated. also, if you might have any idea what the problem might be, and/or possible fixes, i would appreciate hearing your thought s.

[Charlie Stracl]

Unless you are trained in shutter repair, don't do it. Leave it to a professional. A new shutter costs several hundred dollars and you risk wrecking the shutter or loosing some critical little part.

[fred_1006]

Charlies right, Dumb move--don't do it. find someone who knows what he is doing Fred

[David A. Goldfarb]

www.skgrimes.com

[Erik Ryberg]

If you absolutely insist on doing this, do it over a sheet that has it's sides pulled up so that it will catch all the things that fly so you can send the whole pile off to Steve Grimes after you've given up. You can usually get away with taking off a rear plate before too many parts zing out across the room but I don't know if you can on a Copal shutter or not.

On the other hand you could send it to Steve before it's a basket case and save yourself a pile of money.

[sheldon hambrick]

Why don't you just try tightening everything first - screws, retaining rings etc?

[Pete Andrews]

I'd definitely advise against trying to get into the shutter from the back. However, you may be able to "shim" the ring at the back of the shutter with some pieces of ordinary copying paper, without any disassembly at all. Push the corner of a sheet of paper under the ring that the aperture lever is attached to, and tear it off flush. Repeat this 2 or 3 more times at different positions around the ring, or until the movement is stiff enough. Avoid putting the paper anywhere near where it might work its way into an opening in the shutter body. If the paper works its way out from under the ring again, well you've lost nothing have you?