Fraser
Well-known
Can't seem to find a black paint SP anywhere in UK, so thinking of painting a chrome one, I've repainted leicas in the past and have boxes of Nikon F black paint parts for any of the dials etc. Has anyone repainted one?
I read somewhere the back has quite thick chrome that is hard to remove?
Thanks Fraser.
I read somewhere the back has quite thick chrome that is hard to remove?
Thanks Fraser.
I think the difficulty with the back is removing then reinstalling the three rivets that connect the base part to the back part.
Highway 61
Revisited
This is it indeed. Many Nikon RF repaint jobs look ugly because people don't remove the chrome of the baseplate, they just paint it black over chrome because of those rivets.
Some weeks ago another fellow RFFer told me that he was about to start a black SP paint job, because he was the lucky owner of a spare original black SP back from the 1950's, which would then be installed on the properly repainted chrome body.
Black Nikon F parts (frames counter cover, A/R ring, rewind knob) are very interesting there.
Fraser
Well-known
If thats all thats stopping stripping the chrome it can't be that hard with a bit of patience.
Also are the black parts (body shell) on a chrome sp already painted brass or chrome I wonder.
Cheers
enasniearth
Well-known
the body shell is a casting (aluminum alloy) it has a yellow primer on some cameras, then black paint - others appear to be black nickel then black paint
the black part of the back is black paint over metal either aluminum alloy or ? / not chrome or brass , this looks like black paint over a base coat
the rivits may be hard to find , on an sp they are chrome , on an s2 they are black ,
my black sp is very worn so I can see the layers in areas , odd this is the first time I looked at it so closely
Fraser
Well-known
but is the base of the back on a chrome sp chrome over brass?
Funny on my black paint S3 the body shell looks like paint over brass but maybe it is yellow primer.
Fraser
Well-known
looking at a F back it looks like the base of the back is brass,
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
That lucky owner would be me, and it was some months ago (time flies!) and this is how it has gone since then, with some background about a couple of things I've learned that might be of interest outside the usual "I painted my SP black" story, and other things that are just like every other "I painted my SP black" story.
First off, for the OP, there are several threads here on RFF on dechroming, followed by removing the nickel plating on camera bodies. Most or all of those are on Leicas, but the information carries over to the Nikon SP as well, so I won't repeat everything which is already available in those other threads, except as it relates to a couple of semi-interesting things I found when doing my original chrome SP body.
Starting point: I bought a far from pristine SP here on RFF a few years ago for a decent price. Well, it was a decent price until I got it home and discovered that the cloth shutter curtain had a hole in it, which the seller had not mentioned (must have forgotten!). I really enjoyed the SP over the S3 2000 I had, because of the finder, and it had a very happy personality, the hole in the shutter curtain providing every frame with a ray of sunshine.
The general rattiness of the body was mostly confined to the back and baseplate, though there was a small dent in the top plate, and an almost imperceptible bend in the front plate (which was unnoticeable but would have implications later).
The opportunity arose about a year ago to buy a N.O.S. SP back plate of for which I was, and still consider myself to be very fortunate (thank you Jon!).
Whether this back was from an original SP or the 2005 was unknown then (more on that later).
Before starting with disassembly, I received some gracious assistance with arcane SP assembly and construction details from Highway 61 (many thanks!).
Because of the hole in the shutter curtain, the plan was to acquire an F parts body (chrome in this case because it was cheaper and easier to find one, $30!) for the titanium shutter, and do the repaint and have the shutter replaced more or less at once. I chose to chemically strip the chrome and nickel instead of reverse electroplating because it was not difficult and I don't trust platers with small parts based upon lots of past experience. (YMMV). Muriatic acid to remove the chrome plating (front plate, top plate, and the small parts), followed by the chemical agent purchased from Caswell to remove the nickel plate. It works.
I was de-plating the frames counter cover, A/R ring, rewind knob and front plate from the F donor body as well as the parts from the SP, planning to paint them all and use the ones that turned out the best when I reassembled the SP.
Finally, for those souls who are still with me, we get to the first thing I found interesting. The chrome plating on the original SP is much thicker than the plating on an F, as is the nickel plating. The chrome comes off the F parts in muriatic acid in about 60 seconds. It probably took somewhere in the neighborhood of ten minutes to get all the chrome layer off the otherwise similar SP parts. Along the same lines but less pronounced for the nickel layer as well.
Regarding the frames counter cover, something to note if doing all this is that the counter cover on an original SP is different from the counter cover they used on the SP 2005 (though the fit is interchangeable). For whatever reason, when Nikon did the SP re-creation, they used the style of cover from the F, not the SP. The engraved circles on the top are different. My original cover was a little more worse for wear than the perfect one I had from the F body, but I ended up using the original one when I reassembled the SP, just because it was more authentic, though I am not sure why I would care when Nikon obviously didn't.
One other thing I found interesting concerned the black paint back I obtained relative to the original SP body I was starting with. Am fairly certain at this point that the N.O.S. black paint back I had was from a 2005 SP, and not an original SP. Why? The paint on the back was both a different color black than the black paint (there is some on the frame) on my original chrome body, and was of much higher quality. The black paint on the original was thicker, and glossier, than the paint on what I am now sure was from the re-issue. Also, the paint on the re-issue is perfect, and the paint job Nikon did on the bodies originally had a lot of orange peel, relatively speaking, though you might not notice it unless you were faced with sticking the new back on an original frame, as I was. So, I had to repaint the frame of the chassis as well to get it to match the new back. Which meant matching both the color and the gloss level of the new back with a decent paint which would last.
After running through several paint formulations and manufacturers, I settled on Imron semi-gloss as pretty much a perfect match to the reissue back. There are four stock gloss levels of Imron paint. The paint on a Fifties Nikon is much closer to a full gloss. I used the first level of flatting on the Imron, which they call semi-gloss, and is really close to the surface texture of the reissue back, and the shade of this black is pretty close to a perfect match. The next flatter level of Imron stock flatting is satin gloss, which would have worked pretty well also, perhaps a tiny bit flatter than the reissue texture. If I were doing it again, and wanted to match the reissue SP, I would use Imron mixed halfway between semi-gloss and satin gloss. To match the original Nikon Fifties paint, on the other hand, Imron black mixed halfway between gloss and semi-gloss would be a perfect match. Some might think Imron, which is a very high quality paint, would be too thick. It doesn't have to be. Hopefully this might save someone else the trouble of running test samples of a lot of high quality two stage paints as I did.
The quality of the paint job on an original SP wasn't that great, in terms of the orange peel, etc, but it was durable, more durable than I have seen on contemporary Leicas. Nikon upped their game considerably on the reissue. Like restoring a classic car, whether to do it better than original because, well, it's frankly better, or mimic the lower quality of the original, that's always been a personal decision. They didn't have HVLP sprayers in the Fifties. If they did, they would have used them. Repainting these poorly just because that's how uncle Shinjo did it back in the day has always seemed perverse to me, but that's just an opinion. Others have a fondness for mimicking uncle Shinjo's way exactly, which I can't fathom, and neither, I am sure, would uncle Shinjo if he were alive today. As the higher quality path Nikon chose for the paint job on the reissue seems to confirm.
So, how did it all go? Used a very thin layer of two stage primer, black, followed by the Imron, thinly applied, though enough to get even flow out, to all the stripped parts. This went well, beautifully in fact. Why then am I not, at this point, showing photos?
Well, there's that. Though I have a lot of experience with this kind of painting, and the spraying went really well, I am much less good at infill, and this proved to be the hurdle I tripped and fell on here. The shallow depth of the engravings on the Nikons is a well known issue when painting these, and I knew that going in. I might have been fine even with that as the layer of Imron I laid down was not so thick as to present a severe problem. I made two fatal mistakes regarding the infill. Instead of using dedicated infill paint, the only source of which I found was in the UK, I found a suitable off white color locally, which proved to be too thick to use for infill, as well as drying too rapidly. Even that problem I might have survived were it not for the slight bow in the original front plate mentioned earlier, which ended up making it impossible to cleanly wipe off the white infill paint from the Nikon lettering on the front plate. This necessitated some color sanding which is really a bad idea in this context.
The final result? When I painted cars we would have called this a "thirty footer" because the finished paint job looked great from 30 feet away, but not up close. This black SP body, as is, is a five footer. I am happy enough with it for now, because compared to what I started with, it looks really nice, to me. It's a black SP, after a fashion, which I think is the prettiest camera ever made. There is "brassing" because I had to color sand it. Unfortunately, said brassing is all in the wrong places, because it resulted from color sanding and not normal wear. There are fine micro scratches in the paint surface here and there also because I had to color sand it, and that is because I purposely laid down a thin layer of paint so as not to obscure the engravings, which would have been ideal had I not screwed up the infill itself.
I put it back together and sent it to Cameraquest for a CLA and to have the titanium shutter from the donor F body transplanted, and just got it back this week. It's fine for now.
At some point I will find a nice flat front plate from a parts SP, and repaint the front and top plates and finish them off with a proper infill paint, and then finally finish this off for real, and post photos. It's eminently doable. But, not this year, as I need to just enjoy using the camera again for a while and start back in on it again later, with fresh legs.
Sorry for the world's longest post, hopefully some of it would have been helpful to those few considering something similar.
All the best,
Larry
enasniearth
Well-known
The baseplate on the back is brass painted black on the black sp
Fraser
Well-known
Thanks Larry thats a lot of good info, I've never used chemicals to strip the chrome and nickel all I did was use wet and dry sandpaper!
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
You don't really want to do that, because you will have to deal with those sanding scratches showing up in your final paint job once the paint is fully cured. And they will, unless you sand it down to 1000 grit, at least. You would be unable to sand chrome off the knobs anyway.
Chemically is also significantly less time consuming in the bargain, plus leaving a smooth surface. You could sandblast that at 50 psi with 50 micron Aluminum oxide if you wanted to give that smooth surface slightly more 'tooth' to hold paint, but using an etching primer is enough.
Fraser
Well-known
I only really need to strip top and front plates and the base as I have all the other parts from a black paint Nikon F.
cheers
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Perhaps you are repainting those as well, even if they are from a black F. There may be Fifty Shades of Grey, but there are a hundred shades of black.
Fraser
Well-known
I had a look at caswell seems the chrome and nickel stripper is quite easy to get. I wonder if the chemicals could be applied to the base with a brush and careful masking without stripping the rivets out.
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Objects to be nickel stripped in the Caswell solution need to be immersed in heated solution, the entire gallon or whatever it was, which is then stirred gently for a good while, so no, it cannot work just being applied in a thin layer with a brush.
Fraser
Well-known
Yes see that now, maybe the base just has to be done with abrasive.
It's not only the rivets, it's the leather on the back. There isn't a close aftermarket match to the leather, and stripping the chrome and nickel is extremely difficult to do properly without having the chemicals touch the leather.
I have painted Nikons before, except for the back/bottom, they are relatively easy.
I'm not sure if Alan Starkie has attempted one yet, but if anyone has the skills and knowledge for that job, it is him (cameraworks-uk.com.) He's painted several cameras for me in the recent past.
I have painted Nikons before, except for the back/bottom, they are relatively easy.
I'm not sure if Alan Starkie has attempted one yet, but if anyone has the skills and knowledge for that job, it is him (cameraworks-uk.com.) He's painted several cameras for me in the recent past.
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
I have asked him three times, and he politely begged off each time. Perhaps you might have better luck. It would have been my go to option.
EDIT: This comment is a bit misleading. What I was asking him to consider was to paint the front and top of the SP, and more or less color/texture match the paint on the new SP back I had. I can't blame him for begging off, as that is an unreasonable request, only a fool would attempt that.
He might very well just do a straight paint job on an existing SP body, but there would still be the rivet problem in that case.
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Fraser
Well-known
I think if I decide to go ahead I will drill out the rivets on the base and replace them with m1.6 dome head bolts, with a bit of a file they will look just like rivets.
enasniearth
Well-known
There 5 rivets
The two on the ends hold the back to the base
The other 3 have a collar that allows a bar to slide and engage a second back lock ,