Earlier in July, in a thread titled "Sputnik flocking", Bob
Karambelas offered the following:

> My TL-120 was very prone to flare, and I usually didn't use the hoods because of the way they froze the focusing. Even with the hoods, it was useless with strong backlight.

(from
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MF3D-group/conversations/messages/4859)

This had been rattling around in my brain and today I
remembered why. Back in December of '06 we had an in-depth
discussion of lens flare in the TL120-1, who was seeing it,
and what we could do to address it. One of the messages in
the thread are here
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MF3D-group/conversations/topics/303

:: The summary ::

The edge lens board in some of the TL120-1 cameras may cause
a flare. It is easily handled by applying a small strip of
flocking to the edge of the lens opening in the board. 2006
was pretty early in the life of the camera model. It is
possible that later examples of the TL120-1 had this problem
corrected before they left the factory.

I found flare recorded on several of my images:
http://www.alaska.net/~thurston/images/Scan000844.jpg

others reported similar problems:
http://www.alaska.net/~thurston/images/lensflare.jpg

I recreated the flare "in the lab":
http://www.alaska.net/~thurston/images/FlareSetup.JPG

and was able to see the flare on the ground glass:
http://www.alaska.net/~thurston/images/FlareOnGlass.JPG

and by removing the glass was able to trace it back to a
reflection from the opening in the lens board:
http://www.alaska.net/~thurston/images/FlareInside.JPG

I corrected the problem by cutting a very narrow strip of
flocking paper and gluing it around the inside of that edge.
It must have been an effective solution because I haven't
thought about it in eight years!

--
John Thurston
Juneau Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us

Thanks.  For what it's worth, my TL-120 was a vary late model, 2011 I think. I never tweaked it, just used it as-is, and without the hoods.