The Lens Repair Apocalypse: Repair Shops INUNDATED with work, and will get worse.

mdarnton said:
I'm in the violin biz. We aren't accepting outside repairs, and very few people in the business do, I hear. For us it's that the work doesn't pay well enough to do it other than for in-house stuff (when the cost vs profit is compared) and there aren't enough talented people around. By talented I mean people with a natural mechanical aptitude of the type that comes from a life of manipulating machines from manual can openers on up through dialing a phone, to taking something apart and putting it back together. I suspect with the demise of mechanical cameras and the general cultural inattention to mechanical things (I just bought a new car and was surprised to learn that virtually everything including which wheel gets power is computerized) is only going to make this situation continue to get worse.
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My son desperately wants to be a clockmaker and work on mechanical clocks. My main concern is that he will not have the physical fine coordination and feel for mechanical objects to actually do it.

splitimageview said:
If there is demand for repairs, there will be techs to fill it.

Looks like there is demand!
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Really? Sure there is demand, but market failure from the classical supply-demand relationships are very, very common.
 
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He would like that, but I think some touch is still required.

I’ll always support him to follow his ideas; I’ll see how he goes.
 
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Freakscene said:
He would like that, but I think some touch is still required. I’ll always support him to follow his ideas; I’ll see how he goes.
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Our older daughter is currently in her first year masters (performance) at the Royal College of Music in London. She is getting some good gigs - BBC Symphony Orchestra - but even now her future as a musician isn’t secure. It’s a very hard profession to reach security in. Like you, we encouraged to chase her dream and she has done that to the exclusion of lots of other things. I think that the gift we can give - the security to really put everything in and have a go - we can’t guarantee the outcome.

I hope he succeeds and enjoys a satisfying working life. Mechanical touch is a lovely thing to see - a master craftsmen at work is always inspiring to watch
 
I had a call with Chris from Skyllaney earlier this or last year. Lovely and knowledgeable, but I understand his challenges as well as those of the other techs. Similarly with Alan at Cameraworks. It does feel a privilege to even speak with them.

Quite a few of them are also around our common retirement age (like me!!) and treating them well is a very sensible thing, quite apart from just being decent. They probably don’t have to do the work if they don’t want to.
 
Working on these old Lenses and Cameras requires skills in Reverse Engineering the device and then devising approaches to fix them. The proper documentation for construction of the item is often not available. Parts are often not available. This is very different from the technicians that worked for these companies when the product was new. To do this job right- like Chris did, requires a full-up machine shop and relationship with other shops that could be relied on. Full restoration might require lenses to be polished/recoated/recemented; other lenses to be cannibalized or new metal to be made for the mount; and teardown to the nth degree. You should also plan on doing your own business, as there are very, very few regular repair shops left to hire people.
It is a lot more than taking a lens apart using a cafeteria tray and ice cube trays to keep the parts lined up.
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sojournerphoto said:
Our older daughter is currently in her first year masters (performance) at the Royal College of Music in London. She is getting some good gigs - BBC Symphony Orchestra - but even now her future as a musician isn’t secure. It’s a very hard profession to reach security in. Like you, we encouraged to chase her dream and she has done that to the exclusion of lots of other things. I think that the gift we can give - the security to really put everything in and have a go - we can’t guarantee the outcome.

I hope he succeeds and enjoys a satisfying working life. Mechanical touch is a lovely thing to see - a master craftsmen at work is always inspiring to watch
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I'm childless so this is speculation. I think the greatest thing you can tell a child is that you love them and believe in them. I was a programmer. It is hard to make it to the top there, too. It is hard everywhere. I she is getting gigs now she will probably always be able to eat and pay the rent. And she'll always be grateful for your faith in her.
 
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Sonnar Brian said:
Working on these old Lenses and Cameras requires skills in Reverse Engineering the device and then devising approaches to fix them. The proper documentation for construction of the item is often not available. Parts are often not available. This is very different from the technicians that worked for these companies when the product was new. To do this job right- like Chris did, requires a full-up machine shop and relationship with other shops that could be relied on. Full restoration might require lenses to be polished/recoated/recemented; other lenses to be cannibalized or new metal to be made for the mount; and teardown to the nth degree. You should also plan on doing your own business, as there are very, very few regular repair shops left to hire people.
It is a lot more than taking a lens apart using a cafeteria tray and ice cube trays to keep the parts lined up.
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Well, that shatters another fantasy I had. ;o)

You folks are trying to resurrect from scraps and bits and pieces that can be salvaged. It's like restoring long derelict autos from long defunct companies. I do not doubt that necromancy and conjuring enter into the work. Eye of newt and toe of frog, . . .
 
Eye of Newt, Toe of Frog?
More like Vises, Hand Drills, Triple-Zero Drill Bits... Spanners and Tweezers, Files and Polishing Sheets, Dremels and Screwdrivers... I Summon you to Life!
 
I line it with small bubble wrap, and white paper towels over the wrap. That way the triple-zero screws do not bounce out of the tray, and are easier to find when they fall out of the lens.
 
The other thing I can add to this is that running a repair shop is also tough because as Brian already said you never know what you will get - prior repair is an absolute bug-bear of mine basically guaranteed nightmare times. And as a result basically every bigger repair shop here in Tokyo will absolutely (politely) ask you to take a hike if they even so much as get a whiff of the idea that someone (who should not have) has been inside the item.

This means that the smaller repair shops which already have a hard time get an overwhelming quota of such items which causes them to either make losses, burn out or just flat out give up in face of the n-th customer tantrum who expected magic instead of something that is reasonable in relation to the state of the item was in.

Online selling has made this 100x times worse because now jokers will smash random junkers together to make something that looks "nice" and has no chance in hell of working or ever being repaired correctly ever again.

Let me list some of my ""favorites"" I have encountered so far:
  • A LTM Summicron 5cm collapsible with the entire middle lens group missing. Just gone. Not there. De nada. No wonder it does not focus to infinity! Turns out the middle group was cloudy and the sellers idea was to remove it! Hey at least it looks nice now when you peep through it - right? Right?!
  • Dito above, but this time a CV Ultron 35/1.7.... amazingly it sort of tried to make an image by f/4... if you disregarded the corners which never came into focus now.
  • A Rolleiflex with the leather stuck down with superglue. Ack! Why on earth would you do that?! The lovely leather had to go and be replaced with synthetic stuff. Oh and the super glue leached into the screws and other bits too because they bloody bathed it in the stuff...
  • A Rolleiflex with mismatched taker and viewer lens. Again nothing I can do. I can set them to match at one focus distance and from there they will drift apart again. Hey at least both lenses look nice! Right??!
  • A 35/2 Summicron where the retaining ring supposed to hold the lens into the focus mount was now only there to sort of give visual flair I guess. The thread had been stripped off entirely. How was the lens now being held in there? Well ... JB weld apparently...
  • What's all this for? A Leica M2 sold to a poor guy hoping to start out on film photography... missing most of its innards including slow governor, shutter curtains, and self timer mechanism - also bits of the rangefinder assy. Yeah sorry, I can't magic these parts into existence...
  • Wrong screw - wrong hole ... so many times. So, so, so many times. Hey at least you have these Sony Walkman screws, right? I mean that Leica is now as good as new! Buddy! Now the proper screws don't fit anymore and it looks like crap and works like crap too. Folks, please! - don't repair your camera on top of your carpet...
  • Lens won't mount on your fancy new M-Leica? Just file off all the offending bits! Easy peasy! What now the lens won't work because the helical is full of metal shavings on top of looking like sh*te? No way!
  • Probably so many more I have repressed the memory of because I am loath to think of it...

And I am just someone who does this on the side and for people I know or get introduced to... be nice to your repair people they have seen some amazing horrors....
 
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Maybe we should rethink “our” (speaking generally) recommendations for new buyers. “Factor in the price of a CLA” has become a bit of a mantra, whereas “Buy one that is tested and fully working even if it’s a little more expensive” would mean less new buyers, with limited experience, and a justified impatience to get shooting, constantly checking on the status of their new baby with busy repairers.

Ok that means that we could buy up all the junkers at a decent price too 😊
 
Reminds me how one interim in the media was given something to just keep him busy. He left to the store which was developing film. It was crowded. He wrote what he saw. This is how film revival (popularity) myth was born. Interim just didn't bother to know what 90% of developing services are closed due to low demand.

Just as film, those old lenses are in the tiny and getting tinier niche. To make its service sustainable, it has to be only few services.
Who needs old Industar on Sony, if MiC lens is less hustle, new and cheap...
 
dexdog said:
I think that mdarnton has raised a key point, in that it seems that few people are willing to pay the price needed to maintain, rehab, or repair old equipment, whether it is violins, lenses, cameras or other gear. I think that old gear is wonderful, and I am am willing to pay to have the stuff fixed. I also think that I am in the minority on this issue.
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It would seem a difficult career path for just one person, dealing with the mass of old gear owners (old pertaining to gear and the owners) and the amount of time, work, communication and patience for this work. For photography work (and other types of work) it may be more feasible to train a group of persons to do lens and camera maintenance/restoration and repair, hiring personnel from camera and lens makers to do the training, and then run a business. There is a need for these services, so it is a business opportunity. Run a company with numerous skilled persons to do the work, pay them a decent wage with decent hours and charge appropriately.
 
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