You just got a beautiful gem of a camera at a great price, and now you've noticed that the foam light seals are as gooey as old chewing gum in the sunshine -- what to do?
When I got tired of having to buy kits of pre-cut foam for horrific prices, I took the advice of Gary Helfrich and got one linear foot of 4-foot-wide Isoloss polyurethane foam, 1/16" thick, from McMaster Carr Industrial Supply. It's available as thin as 1/32", and makes excellent light seals -- I've used it on my Olympus 35mm SLRs, Mamiya Press backs, enlarger, etc. It seems to be more durable than the OEM foam many cameras use, and my own testing shows it works quite well with HIE and Konica 750 if you're worried about infrared.
See www.mcmaster.com, and search for part no. 87355K13. That's the number for the thickeness I've used on my Mamiyas and Olympuses, but it will also give you a link to the PDF catalog page that lists other thicknesses.
The 1'x4' sheet I bought has already provided material for half a dozen camera backs plus the enlarger, and that's just an inch or so of the 48 inches. Considerably less than 50 cents per back, and no waiting for parts to arrive.
Felt seals are more durable than foam, but sometimes they do go bad, from wear or rot or mildew and mold. As it happens, McMaster-Carr also stocks low-pile black velvet, in both plain and self-adhesive styles. See www.mcmaster.com, and search for part numbers 88015K43 (plain) or 88015K63 (adhesive). In my experience, this makes a very good replacement for most felt seals, including light trap felt for 70mm cassettes.
First you need to get off the old seals. Peel off what you can, then clean the rest off with solvent. I use acetone, but I don't have plastic bodies -- if you do, make sure the solvent you use is safe for the plastic.
You can glue down the new material with a good rubber contact adhesive, available from better hardware stores or (again) McMaster-Carr.
This page written by Josh Putnam. Please feel free to email questions, comments, corrections, suggestions, etc.
© Joshua Putnam