Hot take: Trying to fix a 70-year-old shutter on a folding table was a bad idea

I was working on this old Agfa Isolette from the 1950s last Saturday, and I figured I'd just rebuild the shutter on my kitchen table. About 20 minutes in, my cat knocked over a tray of 4 tiny springs, and they scattered across the linoleum. I spent an hour crawling around with a flashlight, found three of them under the fridge but one is probably gone forever. Ended up ordering a donor camera off eBay for $35 just to salvage parts for that one stupid spring. Has anyone else had a small part vanish into thin air like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jake22d ago

Flip the kitchen table upside down and check the underside of the top. Those springs have a habit of bouncing up and sticking to the wood grain or a dab of old glue. I lost a shutter blade screw that way once, found it three weeks later stuck to the bottom of a chair rail. Also, get a bright desk lamp and shine it sideways across the floor at a low angle. It makes any little metal part cast a long shadow, even the tiny ones you think are gone forever.

evan_green5222d ago

That lamp trick is gold, I've done that with a flashlight on my shop floor. @lewis.terry that yardstick magnet idea is genius, I'm stealing that for my own tool bench. These little things just seem to find the one dark spot in the whole room and stay there forever. Did you ever find that spring or did it become one of those mysteries?

lewis.terry22d ago

Man, I feel your pain. I finally gave up and taped a magnet to a yardstick to sweep the floor with.