Photomic FTn meter repair?

[jimrohrer]

Thanks for your replies, everyone. This is some good information to work with...
Jim

[Ralph Javins]

Thanks Ralph
I would be interested in finding out the name of that shop... It would be nice to get some more years out of that meter

Good morning, Jim;

Well, I have not found what I thought that I was looking for, but I may have come close. Doug Dailey of Camera Clinic used to work at a shop in the San Francisco area right across the street from EPOI, Ehrenreich Photo Optical Industries, the importers for Nikon Cameras. He does still have a lot of parts for the Nikon F Photomic pentaprisms, and he is the one who originally told me about the special lubricating coating that you can put onto the variable resistor that greatly reduces the wear of the carbon track and really extends the working life of the variable resistor. It will not help repair a broken resistor track, but if it is still working, this stuff will help keep it going.

Doug Dailey
Camera Clinic
518 NE 165th Street
Seattle, Washington 98155
206-367-2440

This is the guy that John Nikon F and I have been using locally for keeping our older mechanical cameras going.

[fschifano]

If you can get it to a good repair shop, I think it's well worth the extra money to have it repaired. Go out and get another used one from eBay or wherever, and there's no assurance that it will work for very long - if indeed it works at all. The meter prism on my F2 is shot, but I don't really care. I'm good enough at guessing exposures so that 99 times out of 100, the meter is telling me what I already know +/- 1/2 stop. With negative film, that's no big deal. I'm not looking to make fine art from a 35 mm negative.