Achilles' heel on MP

The little reel that I removed from my MP bottom plate and screwed it onto my all metal rapidwinder is indeed ... plastic - oh my gosh, heresy - I'm just not sure if in ref. to the MP or the rapidwinder 😀😉😎.

Get over yourself, get out there and take pictures !
 
My bottom plate is brassing, so it's either metal or brass colored plastic 😉
 
I wouldn't be too worried about that little plastic sprocket/spool thing on the bottom plate. AFAIK they have been made out of plastic since they were introduced with the M4 and I cannot imagine any real world situation where they would break (I don't even think the part is necessary for proper winding of the film).

As far as lenses are concerned - wouldn't plastic actually be stronger than glass?
 
The baseplate on the MP is brass (0.8mm thick) and the "spool" or Roller (the Leica term for it) is plastic. Has always been as someone said since the M4 and M2R. I have never had one break or crack in all the years I have used later M's. To make it out of metal would be overkill and it would have to be polished to a high degree of smoothness to function properly.
There are some plastic parts in the M's - the infamous plastic spring on the film counter return of some M6's. It was prone to "fatique" and not reset the counter properly. I only had the problem with a M6 "Panda" and a titanium M6 - both fixed by Leica USA under warranty a long time ago.
 
The "plastic" used in a portion of the aspheric element of the ASPH. Summilux has never been an issue since it's the undisputed best performing 50/1.4 currently in production. The exotic glass in some it's other elements is extremely expensive proving Leica cut no corners here. The original 35/1.4 Aspherical Summilux is a good case in point. If you can find a used one for sale, it's extremely expensive due to the reliance of hand ground glass aspheric surfaces (and consequently low production) compared to the current ASPH version with the hybrid aspheric element. Performance is reported as being quite similar but not exactly the same and hardly worth the extra thousands more.
 
Plastic is actually a very good choice of material for this part. Since it does interface with metal parts (takeup spool, screw, and baseplate), it will wear before any of these other parts do to any significant degree. In this location, it can be made thick enough that there is essentially zero chance of failure, as borne out by other posts. I have used M's with this part for more years than I care to admit, under fairly heavy use, and have never experienced significant wear, much less failure. This does not appear to be an attempt to save manufacturing costs, unlike the somewhat suboptimal sealing of the eyepiece/top plate.
 
That sprocket thing in the baseplate - what does it actually do? And how important is it?

I just was told that my M4 (bought from a seemingly not so honest person on rff.com) has a baseplate of an M3 - of course lacking that sprocket.

Comments please.
 
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