Lens repair

[ebogaerts]

Hello all - I had a question regarding lens repair. I was

considering picking up an older Nikkor-H 50mm F/2 lens for next to

nothing as a project. I've never attempted to repair a lens before

(this one has a sticky focusing ring). First of all, is this sort of

repair something that I shouldn't even consider, being a rookie?

Secondly, will it require the purchase of an expensive repair manual,

or are there enough internet resources available that would give

enough instructions to complete such a repair? Any and all advice is

greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[winfried_buechsenschuetz1]

Most fixed focal length lenses are not too difficult to repair. You will find some hints on lens repair in the repair article section of

 

www.kyphoto.com/classics/forum

 

The biggest problem is to avoid dust when reassembling a lens. Only a masochist will ever look through a lens he/she reassembled at home against backlight...

[bacsa]

I did repair without any manuals, a minolta rokkor 50mm f/1.7 MC and a chinon 135mm f/2.8 in pentax k mount(oil on diaphragm blades for both). They were quite easy to handle,and now work perfectly. What I learned:

<br>1: you'll need at a certain moments helluva small screwdrivers

<br>2: to assemble back the focus helicals is a pain, i prefer not taking them apart - of course for you it's a must, since there lies your problem

<br>3: tiny springs like the one for auto diaphragma, just love to fly in the furthest corner of the room

<br>4: if you discover after the re-assembly that you ended up with one extra piece that is still waiting for its place, a small ball,a screw, a rod, something, sooner or later the lens will miss it...

<br>5: take extra care with the little balls at the aperture ring and at the diaphragma blades, they are reeeeally small and you easily can lose them / forget to put them back in place.

<p>

I also disassembled a tokina manual focus 70-210 <i>zoom</i>; now that's a completely different story. Much more complicated, lots of nuts and screws to fix the zooming ring and the focus ring in the correct place, a manual would come very handy.

<p>

Have to mention that these lenses were all around 3 euro and pretty old design... I would not try to repair without any good manual and testing possibility my 17mm af tokina, e.g.

<br>Good luck.

[lex_jenkins]

Here's a page with a hand-drawn exploded parts diagram for a 50/1.2 and a 50/1.4 Nikkor:

 

http://members.tripod.com/rick_oleson/index-102.html

 

There are also a few notes to help along the way.

 

Generally a lens manufacturer sticks with pretty much the same design for most of their prime lenses, so if you can handle one you can probably figure out the others. I found that to be the case with Canon FD and Olympus Zuiko OM system lenses - different from each other but generally consistent within a product line.

 

Zooms are a whole 'nuther nut to crack.

 

From looking at Rick's diagram I'd say the Nikkor looks relatively easy to handle. No worse than a Canon FD normal lens, probably much easier than a Zuiko (which tend to have one or two locking parts that defy loosening).

[crackers_.]

Anything ever assembled by anyone anywhere went together in some order; not always intuitive, sometimes sneaky, but with patience - discernible. At the very worst, you won't break a broken lens, you'll create a really good loupe. Imagination and persistence.

[jay_.]

Most Nikkor lenses tend to get very loose focusing rings with age, a sticky one can be a sign of the helicoid being slightly deformed due to a bump; of course if it was re-lubed by a hack sometime in its life, that could do it too.

[bob fowler]

I had a cat pee in a camera bag once. She made a direct hit on a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor-S - luckily, the lens was the only thing in the bag. I didn't discover it for about a week. The lens of course was shot, but I tried to take it apart anyway. I discovered that NOTHING in the world can loosen a lens locked up by cat piss.