How can I clean an FD S.S.C lens?

I have my grandfathers FD lens collection. And love them to bits, but my favourite (the 50mm f/1,4 s.s.c. ) has caught some fungus and dust.

 

I really want to clean it and keep it in as perfect condition as possible. Was seeking professionals to do this for me, but their either stopped cleaning lenses, or don't want to work on an old manual FD lens. Even contacted my local Canon office if they could service my FD lens, tell me about a place to service it, or at least tell me how to clean it myself ... e-mailed them twice, still no reply...

 

So asking here. Any tips on cleaning an FD lens? I am mildly worried about the "S.S.C." coating durability. Is there something I need to be extra careful about? Normally I hear about using a diluted bleach + peroxide approach. But, will it attack S.S.C. ?

 

In general are there any good schematics or tips on cleaning these lenses?

There's a guide to opening up this lens, or one very similar, on Rick Oleson's website here:

 

Canon FD Lens Service

 

The coatings are pretty durable in my experience. As to cleaning, it depends how bad the fungus is but I never use anything stronger than a little watered down antibacterial handwash, either on the end of a teased out cotton bud / Q-tip, or if the element can be removed completely, gently washed and rubbed with the diluted handwash on a soft cloth or washing sponge. Be careful to reassemble the elements with the correct orientation.

Hi, thank you for the great link and quick reply (or reply in general ...unlike Canon Slovenia).

 

Also thanks for the antibacterial hand-wash tip. Sadly will need to remove the front element. The fungus seems to grow on the second one or the inner side of the front one.

Am thinking of going to a flea market buying a random cheap dirty lens and just practice disassembling and reassembling a bit on that one first. Just to make sure.

I've never tried this, but I know several people that swear by it. Cold cream -- the kind of stuff that women put on their faces to remove makeup. Apparently it works great for removing fungus. You might want to try googling something like "cold cream lens fungus" and see if you get any hits explaining the exact process.

If you do take apart your lens, a 50/50 mixture of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide does wonders in eliminating fungus.

As said before I decided to buy a cheap lens on the flea market this weekend to test my assembly skills, and various mixtures on lens coatings. Couldn't find a lens from the same year (Well I did but the mane wanted 30€ for a god awful filthy Soligor 28mm /2,8 MD mount )

However I found a Trioplan 50mm / 2,9 with a mildly faulty aperture blade, one bends slightly when stopped to f/16 or 22 but from f/2,9 - 11 it works perfectly.

 

... Is this how it all starts?