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Learned a trick for sticky aperture blades from an old Minolta repair manual
I was digging through a stack of old manuals I got from a retired repair guy in Portland. He had a 1978 Minolta service guide with a handwritten note in the margins about using a drop of naptha on the blades to free them up. Tried it on a stuck 58mm f/1.4 lens I've been wrestling with for weeks. The blades snapped open after five minutes of soaking. Has anyone else had luck with naptha or do you swear by something else?
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ray18918d ago
Yeah I always went with lighter fluid but naptha makes way more sense for sure.
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henry60418d ago
My grandpa used to call lighter fluid "campfire starter in a can" and always swore by naptha for cleaning carburetors on his old Ford truck back in the 70s. It's funny how products like this just get pushed out of everyday use. You can still buy a gallon of naptha at most hardware stores for under 15 bucks, but most folks just grab whatever is cheapest at the gas station. I guess that's the same pattern for a lot of stuff - people pick convenience over what actually works better.
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vera_murphy14d ago
You mentioned how people pick convenience over what works better, @henry604, and I think there's something else going on too. A lot of folks just don't have the same connection to their stuff anymore. My neighbor's son couldn't tell you the difference between naptha and charcoal starter if his life depended on it, because he's never had to fix anything on his car beyond plugging in a code reader. The old-timers knew their equipment inside and out, so they knew what solvent worked best for each job. These days, if it doesn't come in a spray bottle with a label promising it'll do everything, most people won't even consider it.
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