That guy who said never use lighter fluid on a sticky shutter was right

Last month an old repairman at a shop in Portland told me to stop using lighter fluid to clean sticky shutter blades on a Canon AE-1. I thought he was being old fashioned because that trick has been around forever. After I ignored him and did it anyway the residue gummed up the blades even worse within two days. I had to take the whole shutter assembly apart and clean it with proper contact cleaner which took me about 4 hours. Has anyone else had lighter fluid backfire on them like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

morgan_bailey9327d ago

Yeah that tracks with a bigger thing I've noticed. People swear by the same old trick for decades but nobody stops to think that lighter fluid formula changed somewhere along the way. Same thing happens with people using WD-40 on literally everything when it was never meant for precision mechanics. We just keep using stuff that worked for our grandpas without checking if it still applies.

nancythomas7d ago

@s the_simon I get what you're saying about never seeing it happen, but that could just be luck or the specific bottles you're using. My real question is how do you know your Zippo fluid is the same formula they were selling ten or fifteen years ago? I talked to a chemist friend once who said most brands quietly changed their additives to get around new environmental rules, and that might be why some people get away with it and others end up with a full teardown like I did. What's the batch number on your current can? I'm genuinely curious if the older stuff is actually different from what's on shelves now.

the_simon27d ago

Heard this same story from like five different forums but literally never seen it happen in person. I've cleaned maybe a dozen old shutters with zippo fluid over the years without a single issue. Sounds more like user error or cheap lighter fluid with additives than a universal rule.