| Author | Message | ||
     Arnoldharris Tinkerer Username: Arnoldharris Post Number: 32 Registered: 07-2006 Rating: N/A |
Having recently done much of what I could do to make a number of recalcitrant Voigtlander Vitessa-T shutters, film advance and shutter release mechanisms work properly; I have turned some attention to the problem of smacked-up lens shutter barrels. I have a number of these that came with Vitessa-Ts that I bought on eBay; and I have begun to appreciate that shutters dropped four feet or more onto to hard and unyielding surfaces on the ground are one of the key shortcomings of the detachable lens principle of camera design. So I have begun unscrewing the front components on a number of Color-Skopar 1:2.8/50mm (normal) lenses, in order to see what can be saved and what cannot. From what I can see, the chromed front barrels with their smashed filter mounting threads are a single formed piece of metal. From this, I have two questions. First, how can I remove the black lens identification ring -- the one with the white block letter printing arranged around the circumference -- from the chromed ring with the bashed threads? And that means removing these rings without damaging them cosmetically. (Their only function is to look nice, and tell you at a glance what kind of lens you have in the camera.) Second, is it possible that the badly damaged and otherwise useless chromed ring might be a generic part that could be ordered from some German factory? Also. lenses for the Vitessa-T (Color-Skopar, Skoparet, Dynaret, Super-Dynaret) are increasingly difficult to find. On the other hand, their counterparts for the later Bessamatics seem almost ubiquitous. If so, I wonder if I could use lens front barrel units from those Bessamatic lens to replace the damaged barrels on the Vitessa-T lenses. And that's one of the reasons I want to find out how to remove the lens identification rings without damaging them, so I can swap them from one lens to the other. Note that none of these swaps would involve changing lens elements, their focal lengths, etc. By the way. Some Bessamatic lenses I own will not only will fit the Vitessa-T camera bodies, but the backs of these lenses have the crescent-shaped cutouts to dock with the rangefinder shafts that run axially through one side of the Vitessa-T shutters. In other words, I can use them as rangefinder lenses on the Vitessa-T and as SLR lenses on the Bessamatics. Go figure. Arnold Harris Mount Horeb WI |