Making your own film door seals

I surfed through some old postings and while I found a litany of

material on light leaks themselves, the only advice I found was to

take the camera to a dealer for repair. That's all fine and dandy if

my primary camera developed a leak, but I have an older X-700 that

needs a rear door seal in a bad way. The problem: I don't want to pay

the $50 some odd bucks to replace it, especially since it's an older

camera and the seal is the only problem (I was quoted $125 from one

source). Is this a user replaceable part? It doesn't appear to be too

difficult a task with a surgical knife and some foam insulation. Does

this sound reasonable? Does anyone have any experience with home-made

film door seals?

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

There is a regular on ebay (interslice) who sells light sealing stuff for $10-15 with an instruction booklet, that stuff works great and I sucessfully sealed 3 old bodies. Some people say similar stuff is available for pennies at walmart, but I don't know specifics.

You can do the repair yourself. I've replaced the seals on two Canonets myself from foam obtained from Micro-Tools:

http://www.micro-tools.com/cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=restore.htm

 

See also:

http://medfmt.8k.com/bronfoam.html

I will also endorse the kits that the ebay seller named Interslice sells. He has several different sizes of kits, ranging from a $6 kit that contains enough seal material do a couple of cameras, to more expensive kits that provide enough material to do a dozen or more cameras. After having bought 2 of his kits, I now just buy some of his raw materials directly - sheets of Non-adhesive-backed 1/16" neoprene foam (for stuffing strips into the grooved channels on the back of the camera bodies), and adhesive-backed 1/16" neoprene, which works well for seals on the door edges, and for Mirror Bumpers.

 

After you've done a couple of cameras, it becomes quite simple to do this yourself, and it's very inexpensive, overall, it costs well under $2 in materials to do each body. X-700s in particular are quite easy to do. Frankly, anyone who charges you more than $25 to JUST do the seals on an X-700 is ripping you off big time.

 

Buy one of Interslice's $6 kit (includes postage), and do it yourself. It will take you less than an hour. Once you know what you're doing, you can re-seal an X-700 in about 15 minutes max.

I'm not familiar with the actual seal application, but two materials come to mind. A slice of mouse pad and the fuzzy half of Velcro, with adhesive already applied.

Black acrylic yarn. You shouldn't need to glue it in. If the mirror cushion is also dead, consider velvet from 35mm film cannister light seals.

 

Check Nikonrepair at yahoogroups.com and search the archives.

I'll add: Pipe insulation tape at your local hardware store (walmart?). Cost next to nothing. Comes with an adhesive side, too. You need to cut it for the desired width, though. Get a thick piece for the mirror and a thin for the seal. Used it several times!!!

Don't mess around - do it with the right stuff! Micro-tools sells it in 8x10 adhesive-backed sheets in 2 thicknesses - one for mirror bumpers, the other for the door channels. I've done a couple of Minoltas (XK and XG-M) and a couple of Yashicas (FR and FX-2) with no trouble. To remove the old gooey stuff, use a Q-tip barely moistened with isopropyl. Actually, use a lot of Q-tips - the job cost is probably more for Q-tips than for the new foam! Took me 45 minutes to do the first one, and then about 20 minutes each.

I have done 4 cameras myself with the Miro tools adhesive backed foam, but for the really narrow channels, I think non-adhesive foam would be easier to work with. I suspect appling an adhesive first then laying in the foam would give better results. Any comments?

You don't need adhesive for the narrow channels, just stuff it in and it will stay there.