Repair Tools / Liquid (and Solid) Tools

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Liquid (and Solid) Tools

	Windex Excellent for cleaning lenses but I use it for cleaning everything on the camera exterior.
	Pliobond For regluing leatherette mostly but works fine holding curtains and curtain straps to their shafts. When gluing curtains and straps clamp tight for best bond. The nice thing about Pliobond is that is doesn’t dry stiff.
	Ronsonol Good for dissolving old grease and flushing out dirty mechanisms. Caution: Ronsonol is very flammable...duh, it is lighter fluid. Coleman campstove fuel works fine also but stinks to high heaven.
	Teflon Lube Use sparringly on pivot shafts. Apply with the tip of your smallest slot screwdriver. Radio Shack carries a couple different types in handy tubes.
	Moly grease Thick molybdenum disulfide grease. Good for high surface stress areas or use as focus helix damping grease. Also very useful for holding aluminum/brass screws of old Kodaks to your screwdriver. Just apply a small ball of moly on the driver tip and stick on the screw. It’ll stay stuck there until you start the screw.
	RemOil This is gun oil. I use it as penetrating oil. It can be a mess to use but it frees shafts and pivots well. On older cameras I usually flush with Ronsonol after the parts free up then blow everything dry and apply Teflon lube to the pivots. On newer cameras made of harder steel parts I skip the Teflon lube and run dry.
	Acetone (in some types of fingernail polish remover) Use to unstick stuck screws.
	Graphite Get the finest grain size you can find. I use graphite as a manually applied plating. I massage it on contact surfaces until the color slightly darkens then blow out all stray graphite. Very good for aperture/shutter blades.
	J/B Weld Can repair most broken parts that don’t see high stress.
	Kleenex To clean lens elements. My favorite technique is to fold the Kleenex in small squares and hold with round tipped locking tweezers. Do not touch glass with tweezers nor apply pressure. Wipe in circles, do not scrub. And change the Kleenex if ANY dirt particles can be seen on it. These particles WILL scratch the glass!
	Paper towels Exterior cleaning and as a placemat for the camera to protect both camera and desk from scratches during assembly/disassembly.
	Washcloth I prefer an old washcloth in lieu of the paper towel as a placemat.
	Paints Micro-Tools sells several paints and coatings that sometimes even match the camera color!
	Can of compressed air An essential cleaning tool. An air compressor set at about 40 psi with a pencil tip is best and by far cheapest but my wife won’t let me bring the garage compressor in the house.