IIIf rewind shaft lubricant?

[Nomad Z]

The vertical motion of the rewind knob on my IIIf is rather loose - it has a tendency to drop when I'm rewinding, and to lift when the camera is upside down for loading (or when I'm putting it in the bag, etc). It doesn't affect the functioning, but is a little annoying, and requires me to handle the camera in such a way as to stop it doing its own thing.

According to the Leitz service manual, this shaft should be lubricated with something called No. 300 (the symbol is three circles with the top-right quadrants filled in black), but there is no indication of what that actually is. I assume it's grease of some sort, and is intended to introduce a little drag to keep the shaft in the up or down position as required, but can anyone confirm this? Does the rewind knob on your Barnack have some drag when you raise and lower it? If so, are there traces of grease on the shaft that slides in the little chrome collar?

 

[Paul Luscher]

I would contact either Don Goldberg (DAG Camera Parts) or Sherry Krauter (Golden Touch Camera Repair) about this. Both of them service and repair Barnack Leicas, and they could tell you what the appropriate lubricant (or acceptable substitute) is.

 

[john neal]

I use a heavy grade of synthetic or lithium based grease on mine. You could also try vacuum pump grease - that's really thick!

 

[Nomad Z]

I used some of this just after my original post...

http://marinestore.co.uk/Merchant2/...MD385504&Category_code=misc--oils-and-greases

It's a little better, but could be stiffer yet. If the camera is sitting on the desk, and I raise the rewind knob, it gradually drops down under its own weight, taking about a minute. So, it's damped a bit, and has less tendency to move away from the camera, such as when I'm putting it in the bag (the knob would often pop out and catch on the edge of the padded divider).

It's a nice grease, incidentally. It's main plus points for me are that it's high performance, doesn't break down or separate, and is totally benign on plastics. On focus helicals, it seems to give quite nice damping - not too stiff. It also made a positive difference to the aperture ring on my Jupiter-3, which is now much more likely to stay where I set it.

Will try DAG and Sherry to see what they say (and mooch about for stiffer grease ni the meantime).