Premium for black Copal shutter?

[Tin Can]

I have been doing DIY since I was watching my parents, build a cabin, drill the well by hand, dig the outhouse hole, make the boat, make me special small water skies. In the 50's.

I DIY everything I can still do, at age 68. Made a boat 20 years ago. Made a lot of sculpture, fixed 100's of bicycles and motorcycles. Made VW Mud Buggies, etc in the 70's.

But shutters are beyond my beat up hands and dim eyes going forward.

I am building 2 tiny houses, next to my ancient house. Just in case....

I was late to Punk Rock as when it started getting big about 1978 I thought I was too old. But 1983 to 2003 I was in the mosh pit...Punk Rock made DIY, imho

I'm actually seeing it go the opposite way. More and more people are learning to do this work on their own instead of sending it out to have a professional do it. Thanks to the internet as a source of free information and sourcing obscure parts, there's a growing class of people who are far more inclined to take on difficult repair projects. It's especially true for the younger generations, since wage growth hasn't kept up with inflation for decades now, they're being forced to attempt DIY projects previous generations would pass on since they can't afford to send things out to expensive professionals or throw it out and buy a replacement when it breaks. Plus they tend to be more experience oriented, and what is a DIY project, if not an experience?


Oh. Well in that case, it's probably the same as what I had made.

[Corran]

From what I've seen on a few camera groups on Facebook, home "repair" is usually a soak in Ronsonol with the top cover removed.

Most of them are shooting a sheet/roll or two and then sticking them on the shelf...

Regarding the shutter speed tester - I bought the one offered on Kickstarter recently (last year? 2017?). It's buried on my desk somewhere and I can't remember the name of it or who made it. Perhaps it is now commercially available?

[JimL]

Then you have never used the Prontor Professional series of shutters.

I have not... I should have clarified - I was referring to the Copal Press shutters. Although the Prontor professional is self-cocking, would it be regarded as a "press" shutter?

[Larry Gebhardt]

A shutter testing tangent. I've a Calumet shutter tester, bought new probably close to 30 years ago. It works perfectly. Recently, after acquiring a used lens, I went to check its shutter performance. Something was amiss; the tester wouldn't register past a certain count when aligning things with the shutter preview lever open. My dense brain woke up after a couple of attempts. The lamp's bulb had recently been replaced with an LED substitute. Screwing in the old incandescent bulb instead restored proper tester function.

Every time that LED's switching power supply cycled it off, my Calumet tester started counting again. Keep at least one incandescent bulb handy if you're going to check shutters.

Sal, thanks for reporting that. You have likely saved me a lot of troubleshooting time when I go to test shutters next. Most of my bulbs are now LEDs.

[Bob Salomon]

I have not... I should have clarified - I was referring to the Copal Press shutters. Although the Prontor professional is self-cocking, would it be regarded as a "press" shutter?

“Press” shutter’s are all self cocking. Although the Prontor Professional does far more then regular press shutters.