maddoc
... likes film again.
The one thing I liked a lot about my M4-P was the vulcanite-covering, much better grip compared to the modern standard coverings of the M6/M6TTL/M7/MP. Unfortunately, some weeks ago a chip of vulcanite came of my M4-P while removing the bottom-plate while loading a film... :bang: Once vulcanite starts coming off the camera, the process will continue so I had to think about recovering my camera.
Since I heard so many good things about the "wonder-covering" GRIPTACK, I ordered a set (black charcoal) from cameraleather. It arrived very fast (Japan) and is reasonable cheap, especially compared to the more fancy leather-based recovering sets.
Meanwhile, I had "secured" the remaining vulcanite with a piece of black masking tape but this has to be changed from time to time and more and more vulcanite chips broke off. 😱
So I decided that it is time to exchange the covering and first tried to figure out how to remove the remains of the vulcanite, which was still quite a large part. First I tried with a sharp knife but soon gave up because it wasn't very effective, I was afraid to cut into my hand or fingers and also to scratch the black chrome of the top or bottom plate. According to the web-site of cameraleather, a paint-stripper containing Methylene-chloride should do wonder in removing vulcanite ... But, I was not able to find any paint-stripper of this kind but instead a helpful hint at Asahi-Aki's web-site who recommends using a paint-stripper made by Holst (famous company for car-paints) and available in car-shops. This one is free from Methylene-chloride, BTW !
For safety reasons, I decided to the job on our balcony but unfortunately, the temperatures are already quite low in the late evening ... Anyway, I applied a thick layer of the paint-stripper with a small, brush, repeated this for two times and after one hour (!!), the vulcanite started showing large blistered parts. (To keep things simple I had applied the stripper only to one half of the front-side initially). Removing the blistered vulcanite was easy.
This photo shows the camera with half of the vulcanite removed and the stripper applied to the other half part of the front-side:
I took great care to not come to close to the top or bottom-plate and also the frame-line lever. In case of the M4 / M4-2 / M4-P this lever contains a plastic part, which would have been dissolved by the stripper and I decided to remove the vulcanite here as final step. Also, it is important to keep the paint-stripper away from the back-door frame, which is only painted ! The vulacanite-free M4-P looks like this, still lots of residuals from the resin:
The residual can be easily removed by applying small amounts of paint-stripper, waiting for ~ 10 minutes and then wiping it off with lots of paper-towels. After finishing this job, the camera looked better and was ready for recovering:
Residuals of resin at the corners near the top-plate, strap-lugs and the back-door, could be scratched off with a very sharp knife.
To easily mount the new cover, at cameraleather's website it is recommended to use the wet-mounting method (wetting the camera with alcohol or an alcohol-containing hand sanitizer that is free from soups and remoisturizing additives). Since I couldn't find that kind of hand-sanitizer, I used Isopropyl alcohol for this and applied it to the adhesive site of the griptack instead of wetting the camera. Applying the new covering following the wet-method was very easy and fast. The covering can be moved around for ~ 1h until the Isopropyl has evaporated, sufficient time to adjust it.
The griptack covered camera looks like this now:
I think the griptack cover looks OK, actually not to different in color from the original vulcanite. The grip is better compared to the original vulcanite cover. However, it is noticeable thinner and now the red-dot sticks out of the surface while it was recessed into the vulcanite before.
Total time (without the time I have spent to find a working paint-stripper) was ~ 7 hours. The job is not to difficult but some care has to be taken, especially when applying the paint-stripper.
Cheers,
Gabor
Since I heard so many good things about the "wonder-covering" GRIPTACK, I ordered a set (black charcoal) from cameraleather. It arrived very fast (Japan) and is reasonable cheap, especially compared to the more fancy leather-based recovering sets.
Meanwhile, I had "secured" the remaining vulcanite with a piece of black masking tape but this has to be changed from time to time and more and more vulcanite chips broke off. 😱
So I decided that it is time to exchange the covering and first tried to figure out how to remove the remains of the vulcanite, which was still quite a large part. First I tried with a sharp knife but soon gave up because it wasn't very effective, I was afraid to cut into my hand or fingers and also to scratch the black chrome of the top or bottom plate. According to the web-site of cameraleather, a paint-stripper containing Methylene-chloride should do wonder in removing vulcanite ... But, I was not able to find any paint-stripper of this kind but instead a helpful hint at Asahi-Aki's web-site who recommends using a paint-stripper made by Holst (famous company for car-paints) and available in car-shops. This one is free from Methylene-chloride, BTW !
For safety reasons, I decided to the job on our balcony but unfortunately, the temperatures are already quite low in the late evening ... Anyway, I applied a thick layer of the paint-stripper with a small, brush, repeated this for two times and after one hour (!!), the vulcanite started showing large blistered parts. (To keep things simple I had applied the stripper only to one half of the front-side initially). Removing the blistered vulcanite was easy.
This photo shows the camera with half of the vulcanite removed and the stripper applied to the other half part of the front-side:
I took great care to not come to close to the top or bottom-plate and also the frame-line lever. In case of the M4 / M4-2 / M4-P this lever contains a plastic part, which would have been dissolved by the stripper and I decided to remove the vulcanite here as final step. Also, it is important to keep the paint-stripper away from the back-door frame, which is only painted ! The vulacanite-free M4-P looks like this, still lots of residuals from the resin:
The residual can be easily removed by applying small amounts of paint-stripper, waiting for ~ 10 minutes and then wiping it off with lots of paper-towels. After finishing this job, the camera looked better and was ready for recovering:
Residuals of resin at the corners near the top-plate, strap-lugs and the back-door, could be scratched off with a very sharp knife.
To easily mount the new cover, at cameraleather's website it is recommended to use the wet-mounting method (wetting the camera with alcohol or an alcohol-containing hand sanitizer that is free from soups and remoisturizing additives). Since I couldn't find that kind of hand-sanitizer, I used Isopropyl alcohol for this and applied it to the adhesive site of the griptack instead of wetting the camera. Applying the new covering following the wet-method was very easy and fast. The covering can be moved around for ~ 1h until the Isopropyl has evaporated, sufficient time to adjust it.
The griptack covered camera looks like this now:
I think the griptack cover looks OK, actually not to different in color from the original vulcanite. The grip is better compared to the original vulcanite cover. However, it is noticeable thinner and now the red-dot sticks out of the surface while it was recessed into the vulcanite before.
Total time (without the time I have spent to find a working paint-stripper) was ~ 7 hours. The job is not to difficult but some care has to be taken, especially when applying the paint-stripper.
Cheers,
Gabor
