Exercising Your Shutters

[E. von Hoegh]

I should get "Hooke'd" on doing that prior to using any shutter!

Except for the very rare Comptoise weight-driven shutters.

[Steve Smith]

some people.... mistakenly believe that they have proven experience making an unreliable or inaccurate shutter both reliable and accurate by excercising it. Can't be done.

No. It only makes it reliable up to now. It will probably become unreliable again in the near future.


Steve.

[dpurdy]

My experience speaks counter to the knowledgeable ones who say it is unnecessary. I have been dealing with this lately on several shutters as I own way more stuff than I currently use very often. I let my trusty Rolleiflex 2.8F sit for about six months untouched. I checked it the other day and the shutter speed was very off on the slow speeds. Not only that it was hanging up in B and not closing. And most alarming was that as I spun the arm around to cock the shutter it was opening and closing with out my firing it.
I started thinking about all the money it was going to cost me at Harry Fleenor's but I worked it for a few minutes and everything started working better. Eventually after working it now and then over a couple of days it got back to perfect in every regard.
I also went through my 4x5 lenses that go almost completely unused. Found that 3 of the shutters had gummed up. The lenses I use more regularly on the 8x10 are all working perfectly.
So whatever the theory is, I don't care. I will continue to exercise my shutters on occasion so they will keep working.
Dennis

[Steve Smith]

I started thinking about all the money it was going to cost me at Harry Fleenor's but I worked it for a few minutes and everything started working better. Eventually after working it now and then over a couple of days it got back to perfect in every regard.
I also went through my 4x5 lenses that go almost completely unused. Found that 3 of the shutters had gummed up. The lenses I use more regularly on the 8x10 are all working perfectly.
So whatever the theory is, I don't care. I will continue to exercise my shutters on occasion so they will keep working.
Dennis

I think that in this case, all you are doing is moving lubricant around to where it is not causing a problem any more... until it works its way back again.

Whilst exercising them gets them working again, a proper clean and re-lubrication would be a better long term solution.


Steve.

[BrianShaw]

No. It only makes it reliable up to now. It will probably become unreliable again in the near future.

... which might be good enough for some people and some situations. I'm not criticizing that approach... its just that my definition of reliable is different and of a longer duration. What gets to me is when folks fail to understand that a makeshift approach to maintaining a reliable shutter includes a good amount of inherent risk... according to my definition of both reliable and risk.

[dpurdy]

As I said I don't care about your theory. If you keep using your shutter it will keep working fine. If you stop using it and store it away it will stop working fine.
Dennis

[BrianShaw]

As you wish.

[fotch]

Whatever

[BrianShaw]

Indeed.

[fotch]

Got it.