What to do about rust spots on shutter blades

[Wayne Frederick]

I am having fun overhauling a Contaflex II with a synchro-compur shutter. The entire camera needs to be cleaned and relubed, but when I got to the innards of the shutter, I found small rust spots on the shutter blades and larger areas of rust on the disc that the blades slide on. In my limited experience overhauling shutters this is the first time I have encountered rust. I scraped some rust spots off of the blued metal with a tiny knife and tried to polish the areas with a tiny wad of steel wool, but this seems like a crude approach. Has anyone done this differently? Now that the metal is bare, how do I prevent the rust from coming back? Any comments appreciated.

[Greg_E]

Well, if it was really blued metal, you can get several different chemicals to reblue the metal designed for gun parts. You might be able to look up the chemicals online and find it without all the other stuff that would normally come in a blueing kit. You might even be able to find a solution to remove the rust so that you don't have to risk scaping it off and risk bending a blade.

[Paul Goutiere]

I've not done it with shutters OK? But if I had to this is what I'd try:

Gently rub "Naval Jelly" (from the hardware store) on the areas with Q tip. Let it set for a bit then clean it off gently with water. Then wash the parts thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol. After they have been cleaned do not touch with fingers (all normal humans have oil on their skin) use tweezers or clean tissue.

A product from the gun shops is called Oxpho-Blue. Soak the pieces (if possible or wipe on) with this stuff. If you have cleaned the parts really well this will turn the parts a dark blue/black.

[Wayne Frederick]

Thanks for the replies. I went to my local Cabelas and purchased a bottle of rust remover and a bottle of Oxpho-Blue, both of which are sold for refinishing guns. They worked great on my shutter parts; no more rust and everything a nice blue-black.