Genuine Black Kiev 4

chojna

chojna

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May 8, 2005
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My friend was having his black kiev repaired.It is an exceptionally good black p-paint. job.

This is what the repairer had to say:-

"Yes, genuine ones were produced by Arsenal. The front covers and top plates are bare brass inside (like yours), the non-genuine ones still have the chrome and the paint comes off very easily. They are supposed to be quite rare - in over 50 Kievs this is the first one I have seen.
Any other colours are non-genuine, there is quite a market in green supposedly 'army' Kievs and various other colours!"

I always thought they were all fakes

Any thoughts ,comments ?

regards
 
Not to offend your friend, but what makes him think Arsenal ever produced Kievs in black finish? Paint job itself doesn't mean anything, you can have chrome stripped and black gloss baked over in any reasonably competent repair shop.
 
If one is going to paint a camera black, stripping the chrome first is the proper way of doing it. Because it was done properly does not prove it is a factory original.

But it really doesn't matter. They are great looking cameras in black, and your friend has one where the paint will wear well and will actually brass nicely with use.
 
I thought about re-finishing my Kiev in black actually, but it appears paint job on parts other than flat panels (i.e. wind and rewind knobs, shutter and rewind release buttons, lens mount, back latches) is not easily doable. That's why you still see them in chrome on paintjobs sold at ebay, and in my opinion they look somewhat ugly and incomplete.
 
I don't think anyone would go to the trouble of stripping the inside of the top plate. But as Franks says there is nothing nicer then brssing on a black finish, much nicer then brassing on chrome.
 
Hio again, Sandblasting is the easy way to take chrome off and there is usualy some local shop that will do it very cheap, in that case it would be placed on a stand and the top and sides blasted only. As far as I know which is not much I might add, the chemical bath is expensive and dangerous.
 
Removing chrome is done by reverse electrolosis ... I have had it done often over the years on motorcycle parts. It is simply reversing the process that was done originally where in a conductive solution metal travels from a doner to the item being chromed ... molecule at a time via an electrical current ... reverse the current and the metal leaves the chromed item back to the doner.

I definitely would not reccomend sandblasting anything made of brass ... you would finish up with a surface that would be very hard to paint to achieve a decent finish! 🙂
 
Removing the chrome from brass is pretty easy using muriatic acid. A few minutes in this stuff will remove all the chrome without etching the brass. The chemical is also cheap and readily available.
 
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