PSA: That 'sticky' film advance lever on a Pentax K1000 can be a real trap

Had a guy bring in his dad's old K1000 last week. Said the film advance lever was just stuck. Figured it was a quick fix, maybe some old grease. Opened it up. Cleaned the usual spots. Still stuck. Spent an hour checking the wind mechanism, the ratchet, everything. Finally, after like three hours, I'm about to give up. I look at the bottom plate one more time. There's a tiny, almost invisible piece of dried foam from the old case liner. It had gotten wedged in the linkage under the advance shaft. Pulled it out with tweezers. Lever worked perfectly. Felt like a total idiot. Three hours for a speck of foam. Anyone else ever get fooled by something that simple?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jennifer1mo ago

Been there, wasted a whole afternoon on a tiny piece of lint once.

laurar381mo agoMost Upvoted

I mean, I get what you're saying @the_jennifer, but I'd call that time well spent. A clean keyboard just feels better to use.

noran213d agoOG Member

When you said "invisible piece of dried foam" that hit me hard because same thing happened to me with an old Minolta. @the_jennifer I bet you've seen some similar weird stuff in your day, what was the dumbest thing you ever got tricked by? I swear some of these old cameras just want to mess with you on purpose, hiding junk in the last place you'd ever look. Makes you wonder how many other "broken" cameras are out there with just some random gunk jamming them up.