Strange Leica III

[David Hughes]

Hi,

"The screws of a Leica are of a very high quality indeed. They hardly ever break, unlike those of a Zorki or Fed."

I'm pleased to hear that, not that I've ever taken any of them to bits and have no wish to. But, in other fields, I have been well paid to do repairs and so I am convinced that someone will find a way to snap off the screw head of even a Leica grub screw. It probably won't just be one person or one screw, either.

Regards, David

 

[Dralowid]

Hi,
But, in other fields, I have been well paid to do repairs and so I am convinced that someone will find a way to snap off the screw head of even a Leica grub screw. It probably won't just be one person or one screw, either.

Regards, David

I'm proud to say that I have done it. I have broken off half the top of the little grub screw that holds the M mount onto my so called 'convertible' 2.8 Summaron. The other half that is left is just about useable...

Yes, old cameras and lenses that have had a kitchen table CLA are littered with crossed threads, stripped threads, springs bent out of recognition and places where washers used to go etc etc.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I have broken off half the top of the little grub screw that holds the M mount onto my so called 'convertible' 2.8 Summaron.

O dear. But these screws are very small. Probably it was not Leitz' intention that they were taken out.

Erik.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Years ago I knew someone who had made a tool, using a jeweller's lathe. This tool would go down the hole made by the broken off bit and then he could spot weld it to the remains of the grub screw and take it out, eventually.

My Saturday job then was the repairs and technical replies to letters for the family's firm. Some of the things customers did and told me about frightened me but it was fun while it lasted.

Regards, David

 

[Dralowid]

It's OK, I can remove what's left of the screw quite easily, indeed I have removed it. All is fine.

There was a time when you could get very small left handed drill bits for removing broken screws, studs etc (remember using Helicoils on British bikes?) some were tiny but I fear no longer available.

 

[Dralowid]

Ignore my comment about left handed drills etc, they were never this small.

This is the 'spanner' I use to remove the vf/rf windows, was given to me a while back and has proved to be very useful. Not sure where it came from.

spanner026 by dralowid, on Flickr

On the subject of damaged screws I fear that many do not make sure that the screwdrivers they use fit the screw properly. People seem to focus on whether the blade is at least narrower than the screw and don't think about the thickness of the blade's tip. Result, something slips and the screw is mangled.

Sitting next to my pc is an old Fed I. It is all there, it all appears to work but every screw that holds the top on has a rough catchy texture and looks like it has been undone with a knife....such a shame and finding replacement screws for either Feds or Leicas is no longer easy...unless you have a source!

 

[mkvrnn]

Ok, having read some of the above comments I'm now sufficiently scared not to attempt to remove the rangefinder housing! Besides which I don't have a screwdriver small enough for that grubscrew and I can live without knowing the original serial number anyway.

But I'm tempted to try to remove that little brass plate. It looks like whoever did it abraded the paintwork before gluing it in place. I wonder if there's any chance that the engraving underneath has survived.

Thanks again to everybody who has taken the trouble to contribute.

 

[siracusa]

If you don't wish to remove the rangefinder housing, then rather than trying to remove the plate, an alternative would be to leave the camera intact with its lovely air of mystery until such time as you decide to send it in for a service, at which point you could ask the repair people to make a note of the serial number. This would probably be my course of action. I'd be thinking to myself, "so if I manage to remove the brass plate without further marking the camera, then what? Whether I discover a surviving number or not, I'll have even more messy abraded paintwork visible - do I just leave it like that, or do I stick the brass plate back to cover it?" Personally, I'd probably leave the brass plate be and pay someone else to look at it, in the process giving it a good service.

 

[rodt16s]

There was a time when you could get very small left handed drill bits for removing broken screws, studs etc (remember using Helicoils on British bikes?) some were tiny but I fear no longer available.

Weren't they called "easy outs", less of a drill more of coarse left handed screw thread.

 

[Dralowid]

Weren't they called "easy outs", less of a drill more of coarse left handed screw thread.

That's it!

 

[Livesteamer]

A bit of clarification here. Left hand drills and easy outs are two different things. A left hand drill looks like any other twist drill but its spiral or twist, is opposite a normal drill and it runs backwards compared to a normal drill. With left handed drills, the hope is that while you are drilling out the broken screw, the drill will grab the screw and suddenly twist it out. An easy out is hardened steel, has a shank like a tap and a course tapered, left hand spiral. You drill the right sized hole in the broken screw, put in the easy out and while pushing down and twisting backwards, the screw will, hopefully, come out. Easy Outs are not easy and they can break and leave you worse off than before. Another method of broken screw removal is to drill down the center with a small drill and then drill with progressively larger drills until the hole breaks thru one side of the broken screw which can then be extracted, hopefully.

Broken screws are such a difficult problem that it is worth great care that they don't get broken in the first place. Joe

 

[newspaperguy]

I don't think they ever made easy-outs small enough for camera screws...
and, as Livesteamer said, they are not easy - and broken, they are a bitch!

 

[Spavinaw]

Livesteamer--Many, many years ago I used the technique of starting in the center of the broken screw with a small drill and increasing the drill size until the screw came out. By sheer luck I started so close to the center that when I finished I had a perfect screw thread coil with no center metal left at all! I think the screw was probably a 1/4" diameter. I kept the coil for a long time as a curiosity, but I don't know where it is now.

 

[Dez]

I don't think they ever made easy-outs small enough for camera screws...
and, as Livesteamer said, they are not easy - and broken, they are a bitch!

I don't think I have ever been successful with an easy-out. I currently have a 40-year old Triumph bike that is partially constructed of "structural rust" i.e. rust that is actually tougher than the original metal, and I have learned to keep easy-outs away from it. Worse were old Hondas which seemed to have case screws made of some sort of cheese, with an instantly-strippable Philips head. They were coated with some sort of alloy that had a great affinity for bonding with aluminum cases. Fortunately old Britbikes possess an automatic external lubrication system which helps a great deal in preventing stuck bolts.



The ring spanners which are enormously helpful in removing RF windows among other things are generally available from microtools.com. They are usually out of the larger sizes that are needed for disassembling Leitz lenses, but the smaller ones are generally in stock. They are very valuable in taking the top of a screwmount Leica, and no-one should attempt the same job on an M without the appropriate sizes.

Cheers,
Dez

 

[rfaspen]

I have one of those left-handed bits and tap! Mine is quite small, but I could see use for yet smaller. Found it in a yard sale of an old-timer (unfortunately passed away) who seems to have done watch repair at some point in life. I grabbed a few other small tools and nicnacs while there, some of which I have no idea how to use. I just know that such tools are going fast and I need to grab them when opportunity arises. Now, if I can just convince my wife to allocate the kitchen table to be a repair bench -- I can finish my M3 restoration 🙂

 

[rfaspen]

Oh, the spanner Dralowid mentioned can be found at MicroTools. No need to put the web address here, you'll find it with a search. They have US and EU sites. I've ordered lots (maybe I shouldn't say) of stuff from them. They're great to deal with. Unfortunately, their inventory has shrunk over the years and they don't carry as many hard-to-find bits as they once did. Still, the only place I trust to purchase spanners of most types.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Flea markets are a good source of decent quality tools. But you have to be careful. One of my father's tests for wire cutters was to pull a hair from his head and try and cut it in half. A lot failed this test!

Regards, David

 

[Dralowid]

We are inexorably heading towards a quote from 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!!!!

I no longer have a British bike (or any bike for that matter) but in the days of my Royal Enfield I would wear a plastic bag on one leg...

All is lost

 

[Spavinaw]

Speaking of wire cutters, many of you in the U.S. may be familiar with the tables in auto parts stores with all sorts of small tools--your choice all for the same price. Back in the good old days when everything was a dollar, I got a pair of wire cutters that said DROP-FORGED GERMANY. My ultimate test is will they cut a wire coat hanger without deforming the blades. It seems for a given size, coat hanger steel is as hard as any I know. In the last 40-50 years I've cut a number of coat hangers, and the blades haven't deformed yet! A dollar well spent.

 

[Scrambler]

We are inexorably heading towards a quote from 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!!!!

I no longer have a British bike (or any bike for that matter) but in the days of my Royal Enfield I would wear a plastic bag on one leg...

All is lost

I'll confess to never owning a British bike, but I did own a Yamaha XS650 with was a very accurate Triumph copy, including the "design features" of external lubrication and "Prince of Darkness" electrics. My personal favorite with that bike was the shocks from leaking charge in the spark plugs.

I do own a Land Rover. And as all British car enthusiasts know (and anyone who has seen Cars 2), if there's no oil under them, there's no oil in them.