Repair Rants! "How could anybody do that to a piece of Photographic equipment"

Sonnar Brian

Sonnar Brian

Product of the Fifties
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Repair Rants! "How could anybody do that to a piece of Photographic equipment"

We've traded "Repair Horror Stories". I've seen a lot of bad practices, done for no good reason. Some- of necessity, many- I cannot figure out why.


Companion Thread to:

https://www.rangefinderforum.com/node/4761698

THE WORST PET PEEVE: Gluing the optical block into the focus mount. First thing I do when receiving a Jupiter or Sonnar: unscrew the optical block from the focus mount. If it comes out, a huge relief. If a Jupiter-3 or Wartime Sonnar optical block does not unscrew, proceed to step two- try to disassemble the helical from the lens mount to get a better grip. If you twist the optical block while it is in the focus mount, the two Guide Pins "can and will" snap, destroying the helical.






Separate the Helicals,



You can see the lens was heavily greased, which can cause the barrel to stick.


Optical Block out, cleaned, focus mount reassembled.

This one- was able to get it out using a rubber grip on the helical and end of the barrel.

Next step would be to remove all glass and soak it for Days in a solvent.

I've been sent Sonnars repaired by "Very Famous Shops" that were unusable on a rangefinder camera, and could not be repaired. Epoxy used to hold the optical block. Which would have been "servicable" had the lens been calibrated correctly. It was off my 2m at a 5m distance. The optical block was epoxied into place. So the choice- tell the owner the glass needs to come out and metal soaked for a week, or just use it on a mirrorless camera and modify the adapter used for infinity focus.

RANT TIME: When sending a lens in for repair, instruct the repairshop that you do not want Epoxy used. If they need to, have them contact you to justify and get approval. If they are "insulted" at your request, find someone else to work on your equipment because they do not know what they are doing and can render your lens or camera unusable forever.
 
Excellent advice by Brian: When sending a lens in for repair, instruct the repairshop that you do not want Epoxy used. If they need to, have them contact you to justify and get approval. If they are "insulted" at your request, find someone else to work on your equipment because they do not know what they are doing and can render your lens or camera unusable forever.
 
Amen.

Years ago, bought a 50 Rigid that looked stunningly beautiful in the photos but when I received it, couldn't focus to infinity. Seller refused to take it back. Sent it to DAG and even he couldn't make it right--glue used extensively inside by someone who clearly had no idea what they were doing. I was infuriated at having been taken in by this defective sample and was about to sell it for parts so I decided to drive it over to Leica-NJ to see what they thought (30 minutes from my home with no traffic). When I got the quote weeks later, it was as much as I had spent for the lens less the visit to DAG. Took a deep breath, bit the bullet and approved the repair. It arrived 6 months later but now looking and performing perfectly after numerous parts replaced and the glass collimated

Cautionary tale for anyone buying a vintage lens from an unknown source. To quote Indiana Jones in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', "It's not the years honey, it's the mileage".
 
A small pet-peeve of mine is the seemingly endless conversions of cameras into “lamps” and leaf lenses into “pendants” on Etsy and other auction sites.

Perhaps these items have seen better days? Or perhaps they were still functional but sacrificed? I don’t know.
 
raydm6 said:
A small pet-peeve of mine is the seemingly endless conversions of cameras into “lamps” and leaf lenses into “pendants” on Etsy and other auction sites.

Perhaps these items have seen better days? Or perhaps they were still functional but sacrificed? I don’t know.
Click to expand...

THE HORROR!

What was that movie, "The Little Camera Shop of Horrors"
 
Brian, you appear to have found a Bubba`d lens. I would also add cyanoacrylate as a product to avoid. I have had a couple of lenses with superglued parts.
 
Nail Polish Remover... takes care of Superglue.

AND- way back when RFF was new, the "rear lens cap" of the Canon 50/0.95 that I picked up cheap was a Canon 7. Who else remembers $200 Canon 50/0.95 lenses? The Canon 7 had been dropped so hard that the glass prism for the framelines had sheered off near the base, as in cracked-glass. No one would buy the lens, thinking it had been dropped. The lens is perfect, I have it still.

The Canon 7: took it apart, got the glass shards out, then glued the Prism back together. With Crazy Glue. Made sure it was well vented, did not cover the glass surfaces. Sold it to Joe cheap, he sold it to someone that painted it Black. The Canonator- looked like Arnold in the first Terminator when received.

Superglue was originally made to quickly close wounds. They do not advertise that, but I remembered it once...
 
Sonnar Brian said:
Superglue was originally made to quickly close wounds. They do not advertise that, but I remembered it once...
Click to expand...

And they *still* use it for that! I had a little accident in my studio several months back--opened about a three inch long, fairly deep gash in my scalp above my right eye right before a shoot, and grossed out the clients on arrival when they found me mopping up blood off the floor while pressing paper towels into my head wound (I apologetically had to cancel our shoot; they looked right glad, actually). So I went to the emergency walk-in clinic, they superglued that sucker back together and gave me a tetanus shot, and a couple hours later I was back in action doing more shoots.

So yes: superglue on Sonnars/Summicrons = bad. Superglue on superficial lacerations = okay.
 
I used to know a surgeon who has since passed away. He said that cyanoacrylate was often used to close small incisions. One of my friends is a restaurant manager, and he says that a lot of restaurants have it on hand for small cuts, useful stuff.
 
Don't hold me to it, as I have no personal expertise, but from what I heard CA was first developed as a surgical adhesive, initially for use by the military in Vietnam. I have personally used it more than once to seal minor Xacto blade wounds.
 
This reminds me of the "It's a DESSERT TOPPING! NO, IT's a Floor Wax!" Saturday Night Live routine.

Superglue- a million and one uses.

I once used Index Matching Oil on a $15 Canon 135/3.5 RF lens for the middle doublet, it had separated. We had optical cement in the Lab, but my engineer described what we needed to do. I had the surfaces cleaned perfectly, Newton's Rings when the two put together in the barrel. Told my friend my idea, and got "Yeah, that will work and the surface tension will hold it together- you will not be able to pull them apart". Almost 20 years later, you would never know this lens has a little bit of Oil in place of Canada Balsam or UV cured Cement. Two minute fix.
 
Seconding Brians experience - there is a famous shop out there which likes to use a lot of epoxy and also paint to hold stuff in place. Not only is this a "quick and dirty" fix, but it makes the next time the lens has to come apart for service either impossible or really dangerous. I had to service a Contax mount 8.5cm f/2 Sonnar that had a misshapen aperture. Turned out that one of the pins of the aperture blades had been shorn off and was rolling around in the back of the lens.

The "famous shop" had chosen to epoxy the lens body into the focus mount and also to cover the set screws holding the front of the optical block in with epoxy as well. This made the lens completely inaccessible from the front as it was impossible to even remove the beauty ring. I tried to use a powerful wrench but as soon as I saw what looked like the beauty ring buckling instead of letting go I decided to not go any further. Since the optical block could not be separated from the helical and the optics couldn't be taken out of the block - it meant I couldn't give it a chemical bath to dissolve the grease and epoxy. I was left with a catch-22 and the lens has now a limited lease on life.

Ultimately I ended up unscrewing the rear element which was *also* epoxied into place with a great amount of force and at least took the pin out. Didn't charge anything for this. But told the customer to not use that particular shop anymore.
 
In another similar experience I was servicing a 8-element Summicron. Normally these are easy to service but someone prior had messed up and made it impossible to remove the aperture actuator.

The lens was then given to a famous Japanese repair-shop where it was "overhauled". Except that when I got it (with oily blades, again) I found 60 year old grease in the aperture actuator because it could not be removed and the previous repairer apparently had given up at this point and just resorted to wiping down the blades - which mind you is a very very temporary ... I dare not even call it fix. It's something you do to sell it to be rid of it.

So I took the lens and found like my fore-goer had that the aluminum pieces had been welded together because someone screwed them together with great force when they were not meretriciously clean. So the aperture sheath could not be removed. I ended up removing the optics - all the aperture blades and retaining rings and screws - and giving the remainder several ultrasonic baths - which at least allowed me to "pick out" the old grease with a tooth brush and toothpicks - ultimately feeding in new grease which wouldn't leak oil.

If you are working with *any* aluminum threads - make sure that they are super, super, clean before screwing them back together. NEVER use force. If they squeak a very very tiny dab (aka the tip of a toothpick) of silicon grease on the threads is usually all that's needed to save the person after you a huge headache.
 
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My big complaint is people who think mangling a spring in the shutter works will cure everything. I pulled a lever out of a leaf shutter that had the spring wound around one end and when I tried to straighten it out it snapped off. Had to replace the entire shutter because I couldn't find that particular lever anywhere. Then a Contaflex II I overhauled had way too much tension added to the B lever so the shutter would never trip. Took four tries before I found that issue. Never would have thought someone would do something like that, but it happened. The camera worked perfectly after I adjusted it back into spec.

PF
 
I once had my local camera store in South NJ sent a 50 mm Macro Takumar to Comet Camera repair. When it came back, I picked it up and about 3 oz of what looked like 5W-30 oil poured out on the counter. it was literally swimming in oil! I also had a Chinon CM-3 that spent 9 months going back and forth to Comet and never got fixed right.
 
So I picked up another Jupiter-3, advertised as clean glass -it is- and would not focus properly with a Rangefinder camera - it did not, but I'm pretty good at fixing that problem.

Exif-JPEG-PICTURE.jpg


The retaining ring matches an early one of my KMZ lenses.

Exif-JPEG-PICTURE.jpg


But, no outer spanner slots- which are usually present.

Lens arrived, and the barrel unscrewed - always a relief- to show a butcher at work.

Exif-JPEG-PICTURE.jpg


The rear triplet has the yellow coating of a late J-3, one piece barrel. The front element and front triplet are early KMZ, you can tell by the color of the coating. The retaining ring for the aperure ring has been removed and the threads filed down to get the barrel far enough into the 1955 focus mount.

Exif-JPEG-PICTURE.jpg


KMZ focus mounts have 1 set screw holding the helical into the lens mount. ZOMZ -very wisely- changed this to three set screws. The Barrel shifted in the mount, the single set screw is often not strong enough to hold the helical when screwing in and unscrewing the barrel.
 
I had a spare KMZ barrel with a front element showing cleaning marks, enough to impact the performance. The 1955 focus mount cleaned up nicely, had never been relubed. A couple of hours cleaning, soaking, ultrasonic cleaner, and polishing with 3M polishing sheets- very smooth. The 1955 front element is perfect, and a drop in replacement for the 1951 lens. The middle triplet- left it in place, and of course the rear triplet stayed put. All back together. It started snowing again-

L1023645.jpg


But infinity focus is good wide-open to the tree line.

Snowy day- so a quick close-up in the house.

L1023654.jpg


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Good color, had to shoot a higher ISO on the M9.

Through the snow, wide-open.

L1023647.jpg


Seems like reasonable for field curvature for a lens made from parts.
 
About 2 decades ago had a Oly Pen F that the shutter would hang up on. Thought, ‘why not’ and removed the bottom cover and sprayed some Zippo lighter fluid up into the innards. A copious stream of black crud ran out of the camera. I cycled the shutter about 20 times, no hang ups, and applied a little light weight lube to all the pivots and sliding things that could be reached from the bottom and put the bottom plate back.
Camera still works, although it is used lightly. At the time it was a spare body as my main camera was a FT with the meter removed and a full surface mirror installed, converting it to kind of a FV.
 
The thing about swapping elements and making a new lens out of parts- they never come out the same way twice. For this lens, a good thing. Close-Up, and Wide-Open- Shimmed so the DOF just covers focus.

At F1.5 and min focus,

L1024424.jpg


Couple of meters at F1.5- spot on,

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At F4, typical focus shift,

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Distance shots- wide-open,

L1024422.jpg
 
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