Bessa R2 Body covering.

[John Robertson]

I have read a few reports of the rubberised body covering becoming detatched.
I as yet have not encountered the problem, however if that does occur I am prepared. I have a nice sheet of self adhesive grained leather from Micro Tools.
What I want to know is this.
Is the thumb grip on the back door just mouded into the rubber covering, the door underneath being flat, or does the door its self have a similar moulding on it over which the covering is stretched??
🙄

 

[ch1]

Why woryy?

I'd suggest buying the leatherette case from Gandy or whomever.

In fact, since leatherette "wears out" too - I think I'll order a second one as a back up.

Protect the body - use a camera case!

 

[Doug]

An RFF member in Japan recently related having this problem... The rubber covering that is glued to the film door kept loosening and it eventually fell off and was lost. He found that it cannot be replaced; it's available only by way of replacing the camera's film door with a new one.

It does seem reasonable that Aki-Asahi or CameraLeather might make replacement coverings...

 

[taffer]

Yeah that 3D thumb support may present a problem. I'm not sure if some heat (hair dryer ie) applied to the new cover in that zone would allow it to adjust well enough to the back door 'mountain'...
I have a T, so I could discover it myself in some time...

 

[Doctor Zero]

I can confirm that the rubbery grip comes off... I've had my R2 for 3 or 4 years and it's peeling all over the place. And yes: the backdoor is flat, it's the rubber that's molded.

Just so you know... Normal double-sided sticky tape doesn't stick the rubber down: the final bit on the righthand side is too small and unless it's stuck good, it peels loose again. Normal glue doesn't work at all as it doesn't stick to the rubber. Looking on the micro-tools website (cheers for that!) I found that you need sticky tape that can cope with the plasticizers. The picture they show is of good ol' 3M tape so I'm going hunting for that this weekend. Fun fun...

Doctor Zero

 

[John Robertson]

I can confirm that the rubbery grip comes off... I've had my R2 for 3 or 4 years and it's peeling all over the place. And yes: the backdoor is flat, it's the rubber that's molded.

Just so you know... Normal double-sided sticky tape doesn't stick the rubber down: the final bit on the righthand side is too small and unless it's stuck good, it peels loose again. Normal glue doesn't work at all as it doesn't stick to the rubber. Looking on the micro-tools website (cheers for that!) I found that you need sticky tape that can cope with the plasticizers. The picture they show is of good ol' 3M tape so I'm going hunting for that this weekend. Fun fun...

Doctor Zero

Thanks for the info, Micro tools are good to deal with. The Body covering I have is self adhesive, I have already used some to recover my Fed 2 very successfully. They said that it would stick to a plastic coated surface, if its roughened gently with glasspaper.
Its worth getting the Micro Tools catalogue, you can order it from their website.

John. 🙂

 

[rfaspen]

I know this is an old! thread, but it pertains to my question perfectly.

If I remove the rubber coating on my Bessa R back door, can I remove the thumb grip mountain and toss it, then recover the door as a "normal" flat door with one of the many covering materials available from cameraleather?

I think I'd prefer a flat door. My rubber is getting tacky, but so far its OK. But, if I knew it would be easy to attain a flat door (and fancy new covering), I'm tempted to act sooner than later.

j.