Rangefinder Assembly Cleaning - How?

[ARCHIVIST]

I have to clean the RF assembly in one of my (many) Yashica Electro 35 cameras.

I know you cannot just rub away with the lens cloth or lens tissue as you remove the coatings from the mirrors etc.

How do I do this please?

Regards
Peter

 

[payasam]

If I were you, I'd use nothing but blown dry air on the half silvered mirror.

 

[FallisPhoto]

I have to clean the RF assembly in one of my (many) Yashica Electro 35 cameras.

I know you cannot just rub away with the lens cloth or lens tissue as you remove the coatings from the mirrors etc.

How do I do this please?

Regards
Peter

You can clean the normal mirror with distilled water on a cotton swab, being very gentle. You clean the semisilvered mirror at your own risk though. The silvering on most vintage semisilvered rangefinder mirrors will probably be oxidized and will stick to pretty much anything at all better than it will to the glass. If it absolutely has got to be cleaned, you're usually better off replacing it.

 

[ARCHIVIST]

Thanks - I thought this was the case.

Regards
Peter

 

[FallisPhoto]

If I were you, I'd use nothing but blown dry air on the half silvered mirror.

Even that's risky.

 

[FallisPhoto]

Thanks - I thought this was the case.

Regards
Peter

I'd suggest that you either buy a beamsplitter mirror from Edmund Scientific, or pick up a few of those cheap Polaroid land cameras with the big rangefinders on ebay. Either of those options will give you some oversized semisilvered mirrors that you can cut up.