Defeated by C-clips! Oh, the pain!

[Markster]

Ever not have a C-clip tool, force it open, mangle it, decide you're not ready to go further, so you re-shape it back around its post with pliars just to keep everything together?

Why yes, I did that tonight, however did you guess?!

Every time I think I'm ready to venture further into really gutting a camera, something pops up to stop me!

So what else am I going to need just to disassemble, inspect, and reassemble the basic Canon camera (used A-1 in this case)?

Other than C-clip tools what might I need that isn't found in your regular tinkering tools?

[Mike Wilde]

Read Tomasoy - he wrote a number of mechanical camera repair books, and shows how things like needle nose pliers could be ground down to make more specialized tools.

The Microtools sight might give you insight to other tools that have been devised.

My c-clip removal is usually via a forcing with a thin flat blade screw driver. The clip usually survives, but I have been getting better at devising things to catch it so the whole room does not have to be searched to find where it has flown off to.

I no longer fix cameras in rooms with carpet.

I have learned to cover the work bench with a soft old towel.

I vaccuum the work bench and floor first, before screwing inside a camera or flash or lens or shutter.

The gap between the bench and the wall gets sealed with a piece of masking tape.

The bench is entirely cleared off. Select shelves over the bench may be very messy, but the bench is clear before starting.

Place tools back in a logical place while working with them, or the part you are missing will ultimately be found sticking to a tool that you moved just in case the thing hid under there...

All of these are habits that unpleasant life experiences in camera repair attempts have taught me.

Good luck.

[Bob-D659]

Pieces of sticky tape are real handy to stop small parts from becoming airborne when removing, also you can roll a tube around a screwdriver bit to hold brass screws onto the tip.

[Markster]

Heh, sounds like some of the lessons I learned building scale model aircraft, as well!

[paul ron]

All great experiances with UFOs but as you get older n need reading glasses to do anything you develope a new set of "finding things" methods.

Once something goes airborne, tracking it is over once past your nose, it is out in space never to be found again. I vacum the beench n floor, draged magnets...

I ahve a theory. There is another guy further up in time that travels back every so often. He can take tools n things but has to put em back exactly where he got em with out risking messing up the time contineum. One problem, he's got altzheimers, me in the futre with a lousey memory.

I swear he's working on the same camea, mopdel ship, model plane and he needed the same parts for his n snatched mine. He also takes tools n never puts em back either.

.

[Markster]

That is an interesting and very valid theory. I theorize more of a quantum mechanics vortex to a parallel universe, or more along the lines of a mini-Bermuda-Triangle that shoots the parts/pieces into the distant past where you can no longer find them.

Paradoxes are a B!

[BrianShaw]

It must be 5 o'clock already in NYC!

[paul ron]

I'll bet you I'll find dulicates of everything I have ever done in my future. I'll see 2 Clipper ships on my mantle, an extra model RC plane in hte garage, an extra car engine hundreds of cameras and a ton of the tools I lost just laying all around.

I left him notes to put my stuff back but never got a replay nor saw any of my lost tools put back. The shot into the black hole past may be a better theory.

Maybe it's tomorrow in the future?.. it never comes.

.

[Peter Simpson]

It must be 5 o'clock already in NYC!

More like 4:20, judging from the cosmic nature of the speculations above

[Markster]

Clocks? Where those parts are going, they don't need clocks....