    
Kino
Tinkerer
Username: Kino
Post Number: 3
Registered: 05-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 04, 2013 - 09:07 pm: | 
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Thanks to the prior posting at https://kyp.hauslendale.com/classics/forum/messages/2/18686.html I was able to remove the top of a Retina II and gently blow out the ancient remains of some hatched insect larve from in front of the viewfinder port. I did this by very, very lightly blowing compressed air through the a hole in the machined portion of the rangefinder. Although there remains some dirt specs in the optical path, I look at the ancient glue holding the prisms in place and shudder at the thought of trying to remove them without ruining alignment! I'll live with the specs unless someone can assure me of a way to clean the internal light path without wrecking the optics.
When I took off the top, several slivers of black Japanning fell off of the right most prism back in the rangefinder assembly and now its half black. Should I just put flat black paint over the entire back, or attempt to remove the paint that is there?
Just for someone who might be doing the same repair, I have a few observations to add to the above excllent post:
The advance knob on my camera was brutally tight! It scared me to death, but I had to remove the left-hand treaded knob with a pair of padded jaw pliers while holding the shaft with another set! Scary, but it worked.
The shutter release comes off very hard too, but I was confused and thought the entire shaft came out! Lucky I didn't wreck the mechanism before I tried removiing just the tip! Again, I had to use padded pliers on this right-hand threaded tip.
I havent' yet reassembled the top and i dread it, with all the contortions ypu have to do to get it off; looks like there are a multitude of ways to wreck the mechanism if you are not super careful!
Anyway, any further tips on cleaning the rangedinder light path or paining the back side of the prism black?
Thanks a ton for this amazing forum! |
