Fuji GS645S Wide: Broken Plastic Part in Shutter Cocking
Originally posted on Instagram. Notes from the repair bench, kept here as a searchable archive. View the original on Instagram
This is a post about plastics. Plastics in camera construction. I am servicing a Fuji GS645S Wide W. Great camera, I have been repairing them since the 1990s. This particular example came in with a stuck shutter. After some disassembly, I discovered the issue to be a broken part in the shutter cocking/release mechanism. This part is mostly plastic and part of it just broken apart as old plastics are know to do. Photo four shows the broken part on top and the replacement on the bottom. Also, the plastic studs on the front cowling immediately crumbled when the front was removed (photo five). In this case I had both parts in stock so the camera was repairable.
I am seeing this issue with old plastics in other cameras also. I am afraid that some of these cameras are not going to be “forever” cameras like the older Leicas. It’s one thing to use plastics in cosmetic parts but when it is used in mission critical functional pieces, that may spell the end of some models. Please treat these older cameras with lots of care. Of course, we just might be seeing these cameras at the end of their service life.
