Stumbled into an old camera shop in Portland and saw a guy fix a shutter with a toothpick

I was up in Portland for a job last month and wandered into this little camera repair shop off Hawthorne. Place was packed floor to ceiling with old gear. The guy behind the counter was working on a Pentax Spotmatic and the shutter was stuck. He grabbed a wooden toothpick, filed it down a bit, and used it to nudge something inside. Worked like a charm. Made me think twice about always reaching for the fancy tools. Has anyone else found a simple everyday item that saved a repair?

2 comments

2 Comments

rosew371mo ago

Honestly I've gotta disagree with the toothpick fan club here. I've seen plenty of repairs where some guy thinks he's MacGyver with a random object and ends up making the problem ten times worse because he didn't have the right tool. A toothpick can leave behind splinters or tiny bits that mess with delicate mechanisms over time, and filing it down can give inconsistent pressure points that might chip something fragile. I paid $45 for a proper spudger kit for my electronics work and I've never regretted having the thing that was actually designed for the job.

joseph4481mo ago

$45 for a spudger kit? That's insane, @rosew37. A toothpick works fine if you're careful.