My mentor in '98 insisted I buy a $50 ultrasonic cleaner for lens elements, and it's still running today.

He said 'you'll save a fortune on solvent and cotton swabs over the years,' and after cleaning a hundred sticky aperture blades last month, I finally understood what he meant.

3 comments

3 Comments

sageallen1mo ago

Ever think about how much chemical waste that one tool has kept out of landfills over the years?

robert_roberts1mo ago

But is it really that much waste in the grand scheme of things?

schmidt.eva27d ago

My friend Jenny works at a small tool repair shop in Portland, and she told me last week they've got a 1980s drill that's been rebuilt maybe ten times. Each time someone brought it in instead of trashing it, that's a whole plastic casing and motor that didn't end up in the dump. So yeah, in her experience, keeping one tool going for decades does add up to way less waste than you'd think.