HOW TO REPLACE LIGHT SEALS WITHOUT USING FOAM STRIPS, MOVIE CAMERA STYLE

<p>Excellent!</p>

<p>Many Thanks Peter!</p>

<p>Cheers! Jay</p>

<p>Thank you, Peter. I'm very grateful.</p>

<p>Peter thanks for taking the trouble to share your experience. I'm very impressed with your special tools.</p>

<p>Many thanks Peter I've been wondering how to do this more effectively for ages. This way the seals should last as long as the indestructible seals that Praktica always seemed to make, not to mention saving me a whole lot of money as I have a pile of cameras that require this treatment. I'm another one who has downloaded this as a PDF via PDF Download in Firefox. With this article you have given us a great piece of instructive photojournalism!</p>

<p>Best Wishes and Thanks Again.</p>

<p>Graham.</p>

<p>Or you could follow the instructions I've written for years: <a href="http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/sealreplacement.html">http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/sealreplacement.html</a> <br /><br />Jon</p>

<p>One vote for Jon's instructions!</p>

<p>And a vote for Jon's light seal kits.</p>

<p>The instructions Peter posted are outstanding, but using Jon's kit will save a lot of time, most of the time. However, in the odd case using Peter's method might work better. For example, I've had no success sealing a Mamiya Press back with foam strips. I will now try wool as Peter suggests, which might just work.</p>

<p>Thanks!...that is why the kits I sell include self-adhesive fabric seal material in two thicknesses--1mm and 1.6mm. Plus, of course foam, which is a must for mirror damper use (overlooked in the discussion above) or professional re-sealing of 35mm cameras which were engineered to use foam. One other thing I'll mention (and this might be helpful for your press back): You can laminate the self-adhesive fabric over the foam remarkably well. This will provide the sliding seal needed with the sponginess of a foam seal...something impossible to do with fabric alone. The foam has been carefully designed to have both instant rebound ability as well as ease of compression, almost unlimited life expectancy and a very high ppi (pores per linear inch) measure. This is very difficult to accomplish in the world of foam production. And, since the foam is skived in thicknesses of 1mm, 1.5mm, 2mm, 2.5mm and 3.0mm, you can create virtually any imaginable foam shape or seal type. Example: The Vivitar 35ES (cousin to the Minolta 7sII) and the Olympus 35RC used an odd-shaped foam piece near the latch end which served to hold the film canister in place. It needs to be crafted just so. Please go over to the instruction site and see how I restore these seal pieces in both of these cameras. The 35ES was done over 2 years ago, and that piece is still like it was the day I created it. <br>

Good luck, and please let me know if you have any questions,<br>

Jon</p>

<p>The great thing here is that we have a good range of methods and materials to cover so many situations and requirements. Jon's kit is so easy to work with. When I started out a few years ago, the advice I found on the 'net was to cut up an old mouse mat, trim the strips, and use those. I did a couple of cameras like that, and it worked, though it required a bit of dexterity with a craft knife and ruler. I found Jon's kit on eBay, and thought I'd try it out. It was so much better than I'd expected, and the crazy thing is, it worked out less than the cost of the mouse mat I'd cut up anyway, not only in money terms, but in terms of the time needed to do the job. The first few 'mouse mat' cameras were Yashica Electro R/Fs. However, the first cameras I used Jon's kit on were my Yashica SLRs, and it immediately made sense to replace the mirror damper foam at the same time as the light seals, because that comes with the kit, and is another advantage over the 'mouse mat kit', and had not been immediately obvious to me until I came to do it. My FX-3's original mirror foam looked fairly intact (unlike the door seals), and had I not had the foam in the kit, I might not have thought to try it, as a mere visual inspection didn't indicate any problem. But as soon as I prodded the old foam with a cocktail stick, it began to fragment. The most tedious part of the whole renewal process is clearing the old stuff away. That done, the rest is plain sailing and quite relaxing work to do. The replacement mirror foam has an adhesive backing, and it you moisten it (as in the instructions), it's easy to work it into position. I make little paper T-shaped templates which I can poke into the mirror box to trim to the right dimensions, then cut the mirror foam to the template and then insert it. I will also have a go at using Peter's method with my Yashica Electro-X, whose seals are shot, and see if I can add a little more to my skill set!</p>

<p>Wow! I can't beleive I missed this! </p>

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<p >Here is a pic of the folded velvet tape I used to seal the door of the Minolta Hi-Matic 7SII in step 15. Apply Bostic Clear Bond to the back of the velvet and fold it with the velvet surface inside. A light coat on both sides of the slot it drops into and then you can just work the velvet in using a flat screwdriver tip in the centre of the fold. If it gets stuck as the glue goes off, just drop a little acetone on the velvet edges with a cotton bud and it will become mobile again.</p>

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<p >Here is another camera I did yesterday. A Yashica Lynx 1000. A very nice camera with an exceptionally smooth and quiet wind mechanism. This must be the quickest seal job yet. It took me 5 minutes to clean the two simple channels and another 15 to apply both top and bottom wool seals and the velvet door seal.</p>

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<p >The Lynx has a door latch mechanism that must be removed to get at the seal area. You can just make out the two bosses that the latch slides on and the cover screws go into. This latch is a piece of chrome-plated mild steel. And I really mean mild! This camera's latch is so soft that it was bent from use and had some dried-up grease on it. I straitened it out, cleaned it and applied Loctite copper-based high temperature lube. It is used in jet engines and stays where you put it at normal temperatures. The latch now slides beautifully.</p>

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<p >Here is the finished camera with the remnant from thinning-down a velvet strip to make the door edge seal. I just glued the edge seal on with Bostic Clear Bond on the back of the velvet and the edge of the body it sits on.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >So there you have it. Choices in the light seal arena. In my experience foam always breaks up eventually, usually after about 2-5 years. Happy shooting with those cool old cameras!</p>

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<p>Ga-loooo???? Wow. Sorry but that is SO risky! And messy. And sticky. And all - fume-ee.</p>

<p>TEN votes for Jon's. I bought one of Jon's kits off eBay a couple of years ago for a really nice price; just finished resealing and re-mirror-dampening my 9th camera with it - a K1000. STILL have tons of it left!</p>

<p>Thanks, Jon! Love it!</p>

<p>One other thought on this - while the provided stick is a good tool, a generic <strong>plastic drinking straw</strong> works much better at removing the old gunk from the door channels. Forms very nicely to the shape of the channel, slides effortlessly through the channel, and the old stuff wipes easily and cleanly off the straw, unlike the wood stick. </p>

<p>A swizzle stick might be an even better option due to its small diameter both for cleaning and reinstalling the new foam strip.</p>

<p>With the straw, I've never had to use any cleaning solution to remove the "tar". All I do after scraping out the old stuff is dip the wood stick in a little isopropyl alcohol and swipe it back and forth through the channel once or twice to wash off any lingering thin film of residue.</p>

<p>The foam seals on my Bronica ETRSi film backs have deteriorated. Koh's camera said I won't get light leaks, as the channels are really deep. I can see that, but thought I'd try it anyway. I found that the thin strips in Jon's kit, the ones for sealing back doors on 35mm SLR's, work perfectly. They're too wide to insert normally, but insert them sideways (adhesive to the right or left), and they work like a charm.<br>

I would expect that the method described using wool thread would also work well.</p>

<p>OOPS! The ETRSi's backs take the the strips the usual way. The <em>inserts</em> take the strips sideways!</p>

<p>SLR MIRROR BUMPER REPLACEMENT<br>

It's also easy to replace an SLR's mirror bumper with the felt seal from the lips of a commercial film cartridge. They have a backing material which binds them together. I can't remember if the Fuji or Kodak ones are better - one has a fold in it and is the better sort to use, as the felt comes off the cartridge cleanly with it's backing intact. I have a plastic film canister full of them after taking about 30 used cartridges to bits.<br>

If possible, remove the focusing screen from the camera before you start. Many Japanese SLR's of the 1970's onwards have a thin frame holding the plastic fresnel screen in place - you release a catch behind the bayonet mount allowing the frame to drop down with the screen. Check the manual for your camera if you are unsure.<br>

After removing the old bumper foam with tweezers, clean that part of the mirror box the seal sticks to with a very small amount of acetone on a Cotton Bud or Q-Tip, or whatever they call them where you are. I hold the camera with the throat of the mirror box facing downwards during this cleaning operation to ensure all the old foam particles (or excess acetone!) fall out of the camera. Many cameras use acetate fresnel screens for focusing which can be ruined by ONE DROP of acetone, so be careful and patient and use the acetone VERY sparingly! Not dripping off the cotton bud!!!<br>

You then pull a used film cartridge apart with pliers, split a strip off the felt seal about 3mm wide and coat the back of the seal strip and the area where the foam was on the mirror box with a small amount of Bostic Clearbond glue. Attach the new felt seal immediately and move it into place. Allow to dry for 10 minutes before you try the shutter once. So long as you are sparing with the amount of glue you should be all done at this point.<br>

I've done this job many times - it takes about 10 minutes. It's a permanent repair and the mirror action with a felt bump-stop is no noisier than with a foam bumper - most of the dampening action is actually the compression of air under the mirror anyway.</p>

<p>•••<br>

I would also like to thank everybody for their feedback about this article. I'm very happy you found it useful. As readers suggested this should be a feature article I twice requested the Photo.Net administrators to make it a feature, but they haven't done so. Money talks?<br>

Makes you wonder.</p>

<p>Thanks for the tips, Peter. Indeed, helped a lot and I managed my Trip without using a glue.</p>

<p>I managed to seal an old Olympus 35 RC using this guide. Worked like a charm. Thanks a lot for this information. I even managed to create the odd shaped "film cartridge pusher thingy" using a couple of velvet strips glued together. Although I feel some other material might have been better for this detail.<br>

<a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/+JohanBolmsj%C3%B6/albums/6183653295621054497/6183653304350602114?pid=6183653304350602114&oid=101103566685175128989">Olympus 35 RC light seals</a></p>

 

If it helps the article vs. forum thread debate, this forum thread is the third result in a google search for "fix light seal on film camera" so its definitely accessible, and i think im going to be attempting this method on mine. I have a minolt srt 101b, which I know has disintigrating foam, and a pentax k1000 which i havent really checked, but its from the late 80s so chances are good it also needs to have its light seals replaced. on the upside, the light leaks from the minolta arent too terrible. havent fotten any film back from the pentax yet, so we'll see there

To add to what's been said, I've never found it necessary to remove the old sticky material from the grooves above and below the film door. Just clean it off the edges of the door and make sure there are no bits of film etc in the grooves. I use silicone glue, it's easy to wipe away the excess with a rag soaked in lighter fluid. Then stretch and press the black knitting wool/yarn into the grooves, trim and tuck in the ends, wet the edges to prevent the door from sticking shut, and close the back to compress the wool into the grooves - it will be rather stiff to close at first. Open it after an hour or so to make sure it doesn't stick shut.

 

Its important to leave a gap to make sure the lever which resets the film counter isn't blocked - it's invariably to the top right hand side of the upper groove.

 

The hinge seal and mirror bumper are replaced with sticky back black felt, although the Pentax hinge seals being velvet are usually OK.

 

I've re sealed perhaps 100 cameras like this over the years, some to use, some to sell, and I've never encountered light leaks. But different people have techniques which work for them.

Edited December 7, 2019 by John Seaman

Just about to have a go at replacing light seals with foam string and velvet, when I found this article.

I just found out how hard it is to find real wool nowadays - no shortage of acrylic, it seems. Anyway, I ended up getting some black wool/acrylic mix which I hope will do the job and shouldn't be affected by the UHU fabric glue I also found.

The back light seals can be replaced with virtually any compressible material. Wool or even black string will work in grooved type light traps, and velvet for wider strips, say at door hinges or latches. However, the seal between mirror and viewfinder in an SLR is a special case, since it also acts as a damper for the mirror action. Too stiff and you may get mirror bounce, with the mirror rebounding and letting light into the dark chamber during exposure (Kiev 60 owners should know all about that!). So that's one place where I wouldn't substitute the black foam. Even if its life-expectancy is 'only' 15 to 20 years. :rolleyes: