How to screw up two lenses in two minutes

Gordon Coale

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This is too depressing but I bring it up as a word of warning. I bought one of those ventilated 40.5mm lens hoods from heavystar on eBay. It arrived today. Very nice. I'm impressed. My beautiful minty black J8 was on the Red FED I gave my daughter last night so I tried it out on my J12. Even though the J12 is self hooded, the hood looked nice on it and it makes it much easier to adjust the aperture. Then I tried to screw it into the tabbed J8 I'm going to relube. It just wouldn't go on and then I remembered that there was a ding in the outer ring that deformed the filter threads. I put the lens hood back on the J12 but it was harder screwing on. Can you see where this is going? It was then that I realized that trying to screw it on the J8 with the deformed filter threads had screwed up the threads on the lens hood and I had cross-threaded it putting it back on the J12. I should have left well enough alone. But no! In backing off the lens hood I must have sheared of a locating pin inside. I ended up screwing out the front element of the lens from the barrel with the filter hood still attached. So, in about two minutes time, I ruined the filter threads of my J8, screwed up the threads on my lens hood and completely destroyed my J12. And I don't have the money right now to replace them. I think I'm going to be sick. I do have an I-50 so I still have a rangefinder I can use. And I'm out of beer.
 
the wrist strap man

the wrist strap man

Gordon Coale said:
This is too depressing but I bring it up as a word of warning. I bought one of those ventilated 40.5mm lens hoods from heavystar on eBay. It arrived today. Very nice. I'm impressed. My beautiful minty black J8 was on the Red FED I gave my daughter last night so I tried it out on my J12. Even though the J12 is self hooded, the hood looked nice on it and it makes it much easier to adjust the aperture. Then I tried to screw it into the tabbed J8 I'm going to relube. It just wouldn't go on and then I remembered that there was a ding in the outer ring that deformed the filter threads. I put the lens hood back on the J12 but it was harder screwing on. Can you see where this is going? It was then that I realized that trying to screw it on the J8 with the deformed filter threads had screwed up the threads on the lens hood and I had cross-threaded it putting it back on the J12. I should have left well enough alone. But no! In backing off the lens hood I must have sheared of a locating pin inside. I ended up screwing out the front element of the lens from the barrel with the filter hood still attached. So, in about two minutes time, I ruined the filter threads of my J8, screwed up the threads on my lens hood and completely destroyed my J12. And I don't have the money right now to replace them. I think I'm going to be sick. I do have an I-50 so I still have a rangefinder I can use. And I'm out of beer.
Aftre your beer, keep in mind you make some of the best damn wrist straps out there.
 
All is not lost. I can use the J-12 for parts. I'm looking for a clean front element. What year is the lens? I have a good I-61 to trade for the J-12.
 
I can relate.. I once put a slip-on metal lens cap on my Sonnar 50/1.5 and it obviously was not meant to be done that way.. the lens cap immediately seized onto it and I couldn't get the thing to budge, even with the use of heat or freezing.. I had to have William take it to a camera repair shop in his area, and it cost me $50 to have it removed

the shop returned the lens and cap.. and without thinking, I immediately popped the cap back on the lens

(ok, I made up that last part.. I'm not THAT stupid.. I hope)
 
Gordy: You should have used canned air to get it off. Joe could then send you some extra aperture blades for the ones that blew off into oblivion.
 
If it's any consolation, a fairly large scratch suddenly appeared on my newly acquired, in great shape jupiter-3. I'm heartbroken, it sucks.
 
All's well that ends well

All's well that ends well

One of the readers of my blog, Scott from Australia, took pity on me and sent me this minty Jupiter 12 to replace the one that I destroyed. I'm feeling much better now. 2maneekameras said he could probably fix the filter threads in my tabbed J8. I need to get it over to him. I guess I didn't need to drink all that beer.
 

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Gordy,

If it happened how I imagine (the whole front lens block coming out), the J12 is supposed to come apart that way, you should be able to just screw it back in, making sure any spacers that may have come loose are back too. If not, try removing the rear element by gripping around the paint at its base and unscrewing, replace the front, then the rear...

Hope this might be of help!
Ben
 
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Agreed with Ben. If I remember right, my J.12 screwed out the front and went back in the same - no "locating pins" ... works fine. Good luck.
 
When I unsrewed the front of the old J12, with the crossthreaded lens hood, it was difficult. It didn't come out easy. When it was out I could see bare metal that looked like it had been gouged. When I tried to screw it all back together the front part wouldn't screw all the way down to it's original position.
 
eeouch, Gordo. Rotten luck. Glad you got a replacement. Looks like you're in good shape again.
 
reagan -- Almost. I just need to get that tabbed J8 fixed. Although right now I have a I61 on the Zorki 3M. The Zorki 4 that I gave to my son now has a jammed shutter so I'm sending it off to Oleg. I will borrow the I-61 until I get the tabbed J8 fixed or his Zorki comes back. I always have the I-50 to use. A little slow but not shabby.
 
Well, if you could find a spare filter thread, you can install just that (It's what I did for mine)... I'd send you my spare but it has a ding!
 
comp_wiz101 said:
Well, if you could find a spare filter thread, you can install just that (It's what I did for mine)... I'd send you my spare but it has a ding!

I didn't think of that one. I have a silver J8 (no tab) with a lot of cleaning marks. I will see if it has the same filter ring as my tabbed J8. Thanks!
 
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