Aki Asahi - another happy customer

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vrgard

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Okay, I just finished recovering my 1957 Leica M3 with one of the Aki Asahi leatherette covers. Wow, I am so happy with the way it turned out. Looks great and even feels better than before.

I wouldn't have bothered with this project in the first place except for the fact that a dime size piece of the original vulcanite just popped off the camera about a month after I bought it last fall. That missing piece, which of course was right on the top front, just keep staring at me saying "whatcha gonna do about it, huh?... neener, neener, neener..." :p

So, after reading others' praise for Aki Asahi's covers, I ordered one. I also read a couple of webpages about the process of removing the old vulcanite and installing the new cover. Looked fairly straightforward to me. But man, it took way longer than I expected to carefully remove all of the old vulcanite and residue from the old, dried out glue. Took me over two hours just to do that part!

So, I finally get all the old stuff off and think I still have a bit of a project ahead of me to install the new cover. But it is so well cut and matched so perfectly to the dimensions of my camera, it goes on in nothing flat! It literally took me no more than 10 minutes to do and I was taking my time, being very precise to align things properly and then carefully pressed down on the new covering literally all over the camera to make sure it was adhering everywhere.

Now my M3 looks 'almost' like new again. The new covering is a very close match to the old vulcanite. But it feels better. I hadn't realize how hard the dried out vulcanite felt until I put this new cover on. It's not that the new cover is much thicker or heavier or spongy or anything, but it does feel slightly softer and provides just a bit more of a 'grip' that makes holding the camera even more enjoyable than before.

Okay, so it took me almost 2 1/2 hours to do this. But boy was it worth it. Thanks Aki Asahi and thanks to those rff members who previously posted about their positive experiences doing this.

And, of course, I realize that others have previously posted basically the same message, but I thought it might be helpful to someone just starting to think about, or maybe on the fence about, recovering their own camera. All I can say is if you can muster a bit of patience, you can do it and it'll be well worth it.

Thanks for reading this long post and letting me share my happiness with my 'new' old camera. :D

-Randy

P.S. I know, why don't I post a picture so others can see, right? No need because mine now looks just like the one on Aki Asahi's website (http://www.aki-asahi.com/store/html/M3_buddha/index.php) so all you have to do is look there! :p
 
Randy, I had almost exactly the same experience w/ my M2... took me about 2 hrs to get it all cleaned and prepped, and then just a few minutes to recover! Glad to hear you like it.
 
Aki is a pretty cool guy, when he screwed up an order, he was right on it and said just keep the skins he sent by mistake. He also sent me an extra brown lizard skin for my om2, so if anyone needs this or a Burgundy (for om2) snakeskin let me know. (free of course)
 
Kinda wished I had taken some pictures of the process and of the "skinned" M3. Don't know why except out of curiosity later I guess.

Yep, Aki's a standup guy. I highly recommend his skins and agree that they are amazingly low priced. About the only thing I've bought for a Leica that felt like a "deal."

-Randy
 
I did the exact same thing yesterday and also some leather restoring. Here's my M3 in its cleaned up case and Aki skin.

P1010008.jpg
 
Thanks Randy - I am very pleased with it. I'm not a natural for this sort of thing so I was a bit scared attacking my Leica with chemicals. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
 
I don't want to start a new thread so I'll post here;

I have a M6 Classic and original leather is all there, in good condition. I once recovered a M2 with Aki's leather and I remember very much liking the feel and look of that leather...soft and "grippy"...I want that same feel to my M6... Would it be stupid to replace the M6 leather because the original leather is not in bad condition? It's "hard" and slippery, but still...it is in very nice original condition.

(Actually I am going to replace it, I am just finding some mental support here :) )
 
For a real non- slip covering, try cameraleather.com's "Griptac". I've got it on one of my C35s and Wow! It ain't "purty", but it's functional.
 
pmu said:
...I want that same feel to my M6... Would it be stupid to replace the M6 leather because the original leather is not in bad condition? It's "hard" and slippery, but still...it is in very nice original condition.

(Actually I am going to replace it, I am just finding some mental support here :) )
Click to expand...

Some time ago I replaced my M6 covering with Aki-Asahi's "Pebble Emboss" and it looked and felt great. The whole job was done in about 10 minutes. Afterwards a friend of mine (a Leica dealer) looked it over and knew something was different about it, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

<<< This is the same covering on my PB M7. I modified M6 coverings for the job - this is something I can't recommend, as the battery compartment is about 2 millimeters lower on an M7 body when compared to an M6.
 
thank for this post, i just ordered a cover for my M2 project from Aki. So i'm glad about these good stories.
My project involves fixing a broken M2 (it was completely jammed, i figured i could fix it myself, almost done), painting and recovering it. I'll put up some pictures when its done.
Rik
 
I've purchased several skins from Aki and am very pleased. I ordered another one for my M2 last week and as fast as his shipping is I should have it in a day or two.
 
I am curious to know if someone ever used his Navy Snake Leather skin, I am curious to see how it looks. I'd like to "pimp up" an eventual future Kiev with it.
 
i would like to learn more..
how does one first remove the original covering? do you use a thin wedge to dig beneath the original covering and pry it out?
how do you remove the dried glue and clean it up?
does one have to remove the small timer levers and frame finder levers etc on the front of the body during recovering? ( i am guess yes.)
 
haagen_dazs said:
i would like to learn more..
how does one first remove the original covering? do you use a thin wedge to dig beneath the original covering and pry it out?
how do you remove the dried glue and clean it up?
does one have to remove the small timer levers and frame finder levers etc on the front of the body during recovering? ( i am guess yes.)
Click to expand...

All I can share is what I did which was to carefully and painstakingly use a small paring knife. Didn't need to remove any levers or screws or anything. I used the point of the paring knife to get under the edge of the old vulcanite to pry up each little bit of it. Then, after the vulcanite was removed, I used the edge of the blade to scrape off the old, dried out glue underneath. As I said at the beginning of this thread, this process took a long time. I've read that others have used chemicals but I was fearful of messing something up so didn't try that.

-Randy
 
I stumbled across (in Korea!) and use use some kind of eco-friendly paint remover called "J.W. etc.'s Safe Strip" made in the USA. You gotta let it soak- in for 12 hours, then the covering just lifts off!

Not expensive, has no fumes, nor will it burn your skin. Cool stuff (BTW--it doesn't seem to take the paint off your camera either).
 
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