Quite some time ago (before John H. had posted his foam replacement
instructions) I had bought a kit of replacement foam from micro-tools.
Inertia had kept me from doing anything until two weeks ago when a
friend brought me his Pentax ME suffering from severe light leaks. The
foam was turning to sticky mush and the back had to be held closed with
a piece of tape.
I easily fixed the door by adjusting the catch mechanism and then went
about replacing the foam. In the kit I bought all of the foam has an
adhesive back. Don't make the same mistake. The adhesive back is fine
for things other than the back seal channels... ie; the mirror pads and
back end seal. When it came time to lay in the 2mm strips for the door
seals I began to tear my hair out. The super sticky seal wants to
attach itself to the sides of the channel as you're trying to lay it
in. One must work extremely carefully and be prepared to do a lot of
backing up and trying it over again.
The first attempt was somewhat ugly and just didn't work since a test
roll showed that there was still a small leak under bright light. So, I
had to tear it all out and do it over. The second attempt is still
slightly ugly (some of the foam is still partially stuck to the side of
the channel instead of neatly on the bottom) but at least it is working.
So, follow John H's advice and lay a thin bead of glue in the bottom of
the channel and use non-adhesive backed foam. Now, if I could just find
one of those needle nose glue applicators...
Chuck Norcutt
Woburn, Massachusetts, USA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom asked and Hans replied:
: I'm happy with one black boring version of each. My original XA's
foam is
: putty now. Anyone have suggestions on replacement? I thought I'd just
get
an
: OM kit and cut it down. Does that make sense?
No, better visit http://www.micro-tools.com/restore.htm and order the
Lift
Baffle Kit (LB-KIT). Make that two if you start collecting.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|