Tair-11 - Stiff focus ring

[1kgcoffee]

It finally arrived, the Tair-11. The seller said that focus and aperture was smooth, in actual fact the focusing is quite stiff from 2-inifinity. Unusable.

I'd like to permanently fix this. What grease do you folks recommend and which part needs to be unscrewed? I have no idea where to begin

-thanks in advance,
1kgcoffee

[Gerald]

[1kgcoffee]

Well, mixed results.

After removing the focus ring, opening the inner helicoid as far as it would go and cleaning out with 99% isopropanol, it still seemed a little stiff. With new grease added, it is usable, but far from from smooth and still a little bit stiff. I wonder if there is any more that can be done?

[themoleman342]

There's more that can be done. You're really only re-lubing half of the focusing mechanism with that method and the cleaning was done in a not so thorough way. There's a lot of old grease and grim hiding in the helical threads that were unexposed.

[1kgcoffee]

Thanks for the reply.


It seems like the screws holding in the helical ring to the mount (beneath outer focus ring) have seized up. There are no instructions on the net but I'm guessing it is necessary to remove these screws to clean out the helical underneath. The next step will be to drill them out, unless there is a better idea?[/img]