Repairing 21mm external viewfinder?

[davidriver]

Hello, guys,

I have a VC 21mm finder whose center framing glass has drifted out of place. I am planning on opening the shell to repair it but not sure about how much mess I would generate. Anyone with similar experience? Thanks a lot!

Dave

 

[glchua]

I did that once before a couple of years back. A very easy job. I think the lenses are held by a little bit of glue and they can get out of alignment. I took apart the casing and realigned the lenses and put some double sided tape at the side of the lenses. No problem ever since, except that I still can't fixed the cracked base.

 

[davidriver]

Thanks for the info. However, did you finally fix the problem or not? My plastic case is not cracked. Should I apply some glue as well to the glasses to fix them?

Best,
Dave

 

[glchua]

Yes, fixed and no problems with that ever since. The cracked base is another matter.

 

[drewbarb]

This is an easy fix. I used a couple of spots of super glue to hold the elements and masks in place, and screwed the thing back together. I've cracked the plastic foot on mine, too; had a friend with a machine shop make a new one for me out of brass. It's heavy, but really nice.

 

[VinceC]

I had similar problem with the 25mm finder. It seems to be a weak point of the otherwise excellent design, and I didn't discover it until my photos started getting crooked. Happened twice.

The actual work is very easy. The frames are etched on a circle of glass, so you just rotate it back to level. However, it takes some patience to allign them so that they are perfectly level.

 

[davidriver]

Thank you all. I just did the fix and it is super easy. I even did a bit of CLA so that it is better than it was!

Cheers,
dave