Need to replace light seals in Nikon

[23mjm]

Jon--

Well it is what it is--you have to do what you feel best and I will not second guess you. I would gladly pay $20+ for your generic kit, I know it has saved me hundreds. I hope you consider selling on a generic on APUG. Last weekend the darkslide light seal on one of my Mamiya 645 Super film backs started leaking ruining 3 rolls of film. I pulled out the left overs from your generic kit and cobbed up a new seal and all is well!! So please consider APUG---hey I never said i wouldn't beg

[Greg_E]

There is always Google checkout. You could sell directly from a website, but then you will need to figure in the about $120 for hosting and $35 or so a year for the name. You could also consider a Yahoo store, not sure what they cost but I think the hosting, site design, and shopping cart/money processing are all included.

[mablo]

I'm a big fan of Jon Goodman and his light seals. Many of my cams would not be operative without him.

[Dave Pritchard]

I have a couple of Nikon F bodies. My mentor suggested always using a couple of pieces of black tape over the sides where the back joins the body. On mine, the commonplace modification was made for accommodating the MD5 motor drive. That resulted in the corners of the back being broken off. This made the light leaks worse.

If you can't install a good light seal kit immediately, do know that black tape will keep your camera functional for a while. Tape is not convenient, but is better than light leaks on your film.

[SchwinnParamount]

First of all, a giant thanks to everybody for the support, the kind and complimentary words and Mike...for spelling my name as Godman...well, I usually keep a $50 bill handy for situations like this, but the new world economy hasn't been so good lately. Fact is, for the past few years I've been busier than a one-legged man in a sack race.

Some of you have asked me about the disappearance of the general light seal kits from the E-Bay auctions. Please let me keep this as short and antiseptic as possible: about 18 months ago a seller on E-Bay began buying my kits, cutting them into pre-cut kits and presenting the instructions I have written as accompaniments to his kits. When I refused to sell any more kits to him, he began having shills buy the kits and send them to him. When I refused to sell to his shills, he became agitated, sent some threats and then vanished for several months. Now he has re-appeared, and he is doing the same thing. Here are a few more facts for you: in 18 months he has operated under 5 different E-Bay IDs. One of them was nterslice. This person simply removed the first "i" from my ID. More recently, he began using the account of one of his shills who last lived in Las Vegas (darolb) but the ID was altered recently to camerasealkitsandmore. He claims to be out of Eugene, Oregon, but that is not true. He is out of Flagstaff, Arizona. He does not reveal his name to the buyers of his kits. That in itself would be a large red flag if I was a buyer. He has copied the bamboo tool I designed many years ago and he continues to point buyers to my instruction page (on the Classic Camera Repair Forum).

This whole project...the 10 year span of it has been a complex set of risks. Most have been financial, some more personal, but all of them have been assumed by me. Not one bit of this fell out of the sky. Not the specialty foam, not the specialty tools, cutters, tables I designed and built, not the instructions I've written, not a bit of it landed in my lap.

On the positive side of the ledger, I'll be making as many pre-cut kits as possible. As many as time permits, that is. The cutters, templates, dies all require time to make. The waste will be less. It will be easier and quicker...All seal pieces will be carefully checked with actual cameras whenever possible. If you have a camera you want me to consider, please contact me by email and we can discuss it.

Thanks again!
Jon

Hi Jon,

I purchased one of your generic kits several years ago and have been using it to replace foam seals in 10+ Nikon, 2 Olympus, 3 Mamiya, and random other cameras. I am very happy with your kits and will continue to buy the kit ONLY from you. The ebay hack who doesn't have the creative chops to come up with his own stuff will never get a dime of my business.

[johnalex141r]

Finally found this thread; have been reading about interslice and their generic kits; have been looking on ebay for one.

I had been thinking about getting a kit; I have an old Olympus Trip 35 that takes so little foam it is a joke; but I have some older medium format gear and some 35mm that might need re-sealing.

Oh well - off to the local craft supply store! Too bad about the ebay shills- I'm sorry to hear that people like that continue to exist.

JohnS.