Graflex.org

[disemjg]

Surprisingly, this has not come up before on this forum even though there is a good deal of traffic about opening shutters and working on them. I'll pass on a recent experience.

I always wear safety glasses when opening shutters, and am pretty good about it. For close work like this I take my regular glasses off and wind up about 4~6" away. I of course sometimes get careless about the safety glasses, especially when looking at things that I believe are captive and cannot spit pieces at me.

Recently I had the body shell off of my Leica M3, seeking to diagnose an erratic low speed rebound mechanism. There are not supposed to be any loose pieces, so I was studying its function without the glasses. About the sixth shutter cycle I discovered why the rebound was erratic when the mechanism threw out a small (3~4mm) coil spring, with one of the loop ends deformed into a straight wire.

The spring stuck in the corner of my right eye, sideways, where my squint reflex trapped it on contact. I reached up and picked it out without harm, for the world like some 3-stooges routine. I was not amused, as obviously the story could have ended differently.

Needless to say, the glasses are in use whenever any mechanism is exposed, "safe" or not. So do NOT work on any shutters or other such devices without some kind of eye protecton.

And, for anyone who has occassion to work on clockwork spring mechanisms such as kewound movie cameras or frame counters on 35mm cameras, these are particularly dangerous as they are capable of lashing out with great force if carelessly released. Treat this stuff with respect and care.

[troublemaker]

You are correct. I have had a couple springs take shots at my face, and glasses are just plain a good habit to get into. The guy who owns the shop where i work almost never wears any safety glasses when running mills, lathes, and any other number of machines. I think it is stupid and a very bad habit.