That week I flooded a darkroom with a simple shutter adjustment

Last March I had a week that started so good I thought I was on a roll. Tuesday morning I got a beat up Pentax K1000 in for a sticky shutter, easy fix right? I cleaned the blades and set the speeds with my tester, everything looked perfect. Then Thursday I did a Yashica Mat 124G, thought I had the leaf shutter timing spot on. But Friday afternoon I got a call from a customer in Austin saying their K1000 was puking light leaks like crazy. Turns out I over tightened a screw on the mirror box, threw the whole timing off. By Monday I had three returns sitting on my bench, all from my "good week" work. That $85 repair cost me about $200 in refunds and a dent in my rep. Has anyone else had a run of repairs that looked clean but all failed for different reasons?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivia_morgan811d ago

that $85 repair cost me about $200 in refunds" man that hit hard. I've had weeks where I'd do three or four cheap fixes that all ended up being duds later, and you're left wondering if the time spent was even worth it. It's brutal when you think you're doing good work and then it all unravels like that. You gotta ask yourself if the cheap rate is even worth the headache when one slip up wipes out all your profit.

emma_mitchell10d ago

That whole cheap rate trap is just like buying bargain bin tools that break after one use.