How do you know if a repair tech is good?

I also remember something from my childhood that seems to have become extinct...BOOKS:

Les Sarile said:

It's called risk mitigation. If I have an important shoot, I make sure everything I need is there and works ahead of time. Of course there are those things that we send out beyond the edge of the solar system that would be hard to repair . . .

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All the interplanetary spacecraft were designed with multilevel backups to get around failures. That has to be in the design from the start; not something that can be added later.

Huss said:

Some techs are living on former glory and no longer are capable or willing to do the quality of work that they became famous for. I have had experiences with two.
Perform a google search and see if there have been issues.

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yea. couldn't agree more !
and some people don't want to pollute happy frolicking unicorn farting rainbows threads and be a downer and they might send a PM regarding service techs that might do less than stellar work ( might require a PM me if you don't feel comfortable in the thread routine ).

years ago Steve Grimes ( SK Grimes ) had a camera repair business in Boston Mass in the olde EP Levines camera shop. If you were around the Boston region in the 70s/80s/90s you know Levines was an institution ... Steve...retired but sold the name Grimes Camera Repair to Levines...well lets just say a lot of people only went once and realized it wasn't Steve after tech did stuff like trim his beard in shutters &c

jnantz said:

...after tech did stuff like trim his beard in shutters &c

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Ha! Way to paint a visual!

If they come out of the back room with a hammer, run!

The good techs learn from fixing their mistakes. The really good techs learn from fixing other people's mistakes. Sover Wong has several pages of F2 "repairs" he has encountered.

Sirius Glass said:

You must deal with the wrong people. I have never had an experience like that. When a repair did not correct the problem or caused another, the problems was professionally corrected promptly.

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Both were acclaimed experts in their field. Lots of internet praise, but now when I research the same techs, there are comments about how they are not what they used to be.

Acclaimed Leica tech #1 - sent in my M5 as it needed rf separation repaired. Camera was returned with a rf patch that flared like crazy. Never did it before. Asked the tech about it, she became extremely defensive and denied any knowledge of any rf issues. Also paid her to recalibrate the meter to use modern batteries. Sent camera to DAG who repaired this tech's work. He said the RF condensor was missing which is why it flared. He found a replacement for me. So, what happened to it?... Also he noticed that the meter never was recalibrated, so he fixed that too.

Acclaimed Pentax tech #2 - sent in my LX for CLA. Was ok before, but wanted to give it a one over. Camera was returned with mirror sticking and shutter staying open. Never did that before. I noticed that if I used the MLU it would release the mirror and shutter. Sent camera back - tech first complained that he gave me a great deal on the price! - then I got the camera back a few weeks later saying it was repaired but the MLU was now broken and he didn't have any replacement parts.
So he broke the MLU while fixing the other issues that he created.

So yes, I guess I did deal with the wrong people. But these weren't 'nobodys' but famous techs. I now classify them as has-beens.

Sometimes you just know that someone is a hack. There is a specialist repairman who works only on one brand of cameras. He charges over 100 for a CLA or rather an "overhaul" and then admitted to me that this doesn't involve opening the shutter. I feel like I tell people this and they're so desensitized by bad techs that they don't get how bad that is.

To his credit he does adjust the speeds of electronic SLR's and clean and lube the advance mechanism in the top and bottom, but I find it very illegitimate that he would call it an "overhaul" and charge like 120 or something for it without opening the shutter. He was condescending to me in his very first response to my polite business inquiry and became actively hostile when I asked questions.

A repair tech should be frank about his or her limitations, but stand behind their work responsibly, and you should be able to tell that this will be the case up front. My current tech will tell you what he doesn't know, and the first tech I knew was retired from repair work and told me in no uncertain terms that she'd forgotten what she knew fifty and sixty years ago, but that she'd watch me open my camera and give me pointers if I wanted. Honesty and humility go a long way .. I would trust either of them with whatever they said said they were competent to do, because they represented themselves fairly and modesty.