mr. fumble fingers did it: CLA'd an Industar 50!

[fish4570]

and it works! smooooooth focusing! and the aperature dot lines up on the proper aperture marking (which it did not do before; it was a stop short of f16, and a stop past 3.5, which didn't mean anything to the meter but kept me confused)! and it focuses at infinity as it should!

so sorry about all of the exclamation marks, but this was a big achievement for numb, weird digits. i got up much earlier than usual, and about 7:30 went out to shoot a woodsy shot of the waning snow with my bessa r and borrowed industar 50. my fingers were cold. i got frustrated when i tried to turn the little aperture ring out front. the meter minus pointer would not go out. i kept turning, and lo and behold the whole element column/helical was turning out!

i went back in the shack, and noticed the column/helical turned right back in clockwise to an indented stopping point, at which the iris worked again. aha, says i.

anyhow, i sucked it up, got out my set of very small gunsmithing screwdrivers, gun grease, magnifying glass and little nylon cleaning brushes, and break free, and went to work.

the grease that was left actually had some lubricant left in it, but all of it had moved out the front of helical, so the helical was bone dry. i took the lens apart and cleaned everything but the little lens column inside the helical itself (i don't have a spanner). it was trial and error to start the helical in the correct position when putting the lens back together so its stop pins would line up the main pin at infinity, but i got it done.

you can field strip this lens without it leaving the camera, by the way, which i found out while trying to match up the pins. no uses unscrewing the lens from the body to remove the helical to retry infinity.

so, f16sunshine, thank you again for use of the lens. i like it much better now that it feels new, a whole lot better ...

my left hand (the strong one) had pretty good fingertip feeling
this morning. my right hand wanted to rotate quickly back and forth on my wrist but i held it against my thigh or the table top to get things done.

what a blessing from Him today!

[martinsmith99]

Well done. The Industar 50 is the 1st lens I successfully repaired. They're nice and easy and good to start with.

[fish4570]

thank you, sir. i could not do it this afternoon. the tips of my left thumb and first two fingers are utterly numb right now. i have to watch my left forefinger hit the keys on this little keyboard to make sure it goes to the right place with the right pressure.

[Big Dawg]

You done GOOOD. My biggest problem is the size of my hands. Just too dang big to fool with the teeny lil' screws an' sech. Glad you succeeded.