Talking to a retired Minolta repair guy changed how I see old shutters

I was swapping stories with this guy who worked on Minoltas for 40 years at a shop in Cleveland, and he told me he'd never replace a shutter ribbon unless it was actually snapped because the old ones just seat better. He said most people toss perfectly good shutters just because they sound dry. Anyone else ever run into a repair vet with totally opposite habits from what you learned?

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ivangrant3d ago

The 40 year guy in Cleveland is right about those Minolta ribbons, I learned that the hard way. I picked up a beat up SRT-101 at a flea market and the shutter sounded like gravel, but the old timer at my local shop said a dry sound just means the lubricant aged, not that the mechanism is dead. He ran it through a dozen test shots on a bench and the timing was still accurate within a tenth of a stop, so sometimes the noise is just noise not a death rattle.