21mm VC finder has Crack on Base

wilonstott

wilonstott

Wil O.
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Hey Guys,
My 21mm finder--the plastic one--has a hairline crack on the base, in the back. It's a year or so old, so I can't return it--but I haven't been terribly hard on it either.

Anyone else dealt with this?
Has anyone's broken completely?
What can I do to insure that it doesn't get any worse?


Thanks Guys
 
Try a bit of "Crazy Glue" (the liquid kind, not the gel, so that it seeps into the crack) and seals it.
I've wondered about fixing broken finder shoes and always just assumed that if either of mine ever broke, I'd replace the shoe mount with a "prosthetic" made from Epoxy that was filed down to shape.
I know that sort of thing can be done because years ago just for fun I counterfeited an Apollo type film advance lever plastic tip for my Nikon F body by making a mold of my F2 tip and used 5-minute Epoxy as the plastic material, and it worked very well.
 
I had an early Fujifilm digicam where a crack suddenly appeared across the entire front of the case, for no apparent reason (it still worked, but in an early example of "digital rot" I wasn't much interested in using a 1.3MP camera by that point) Some plastic things seem to have residual moulding stresses left in them.
 
Not really it's pretty simple.
You'll need a small cross head screwdriver to undo the two screws that hold the clamshell body of the finder itself together. Once undone you'll see inside where the two screws sit that secure the base to the finder body. They're just in front of the rear element that has the fame lines on.

You'll probably need tweezers or a magnetic screwdriver to pick up and replace the screws as it's a bit fiddly. Also try to ensure that the glass with the frame lines on is straight when you put it back together or else you'll have do undo it all again to correct it.

Be careful with the glue - make sure you don't get any on any glass (you shouldn't) and keep it away from the part of the base where it slides into the hotshoe, otherwise it may become too tight and you'd have to file/cut some of the excess glue away.

Not too bad a job really and definitely preferable to buying another finder.

Good luck! 🙂
 
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