Industar 61 oil odor?

[edri]

I bought an Industar 61 lens, like new. The problem is that the lens has a strong odor of mechanical oil. The seller says it is normal for soviet lenses.

Any suggestions to get rid of this odor?

[Lloydy]

" I love the smell of Industar in the morning." They all smell like that, it's the intoxicating aroma of Soviet tractor oil.

[guardian]

[JJB]

They are very easy to disassemble. By googling, I found a few tutorials on line with many photos to walk you through the steps.

I also bought one from Russia described "like new." Hardly, but it was cheap. I was able to remove the old lubricant, replace it with something safe and modern, and put it back together in about an hour.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Nonsense, sorry. I have over fifty Soviet and East German lenses and they all smell like an old tractor. Not one of them has any fogging at all. Unless the lubricant has solidified and the focus is very stiff, just leave well alone. A couple of my 1960s CZJ lenses had become stiff,but a little squirt of lighter fluid into the helicoid without doing any disassembly cured the issue.

Just treat the smell as part of the experience, they are objects from the industrial age and have the according smell. Old cars are the same, they emit all manner of oily, petrol smells, it's part of their charm. Or what about steam engines, the riot of smells they emit from castor oil (used as a lubricant) to burning coal and greasy steam is a huge part of their appeal. In the 1960s, before the introduction of effective multigrade oils, you had to change the oil in your car between summer and winter using different oil, it was just part of owning a car.

BTW, one anecdote about petroleum based lubricants. During ww2, the Germans discovered their weapons froze solid in the Russian winter as the lubricating oils they used turned solid. The Russians didn't have this problem because they had a simple expedient for winter lubrication - when it got to autumn they simply regreased their firearms with a mixture of 3 parts lubricating oil to 1 part plain old petrol, which produced a lubricant that had a lower freezing point and therefore didn't freeze solid.

[Lightshow]

I've seen a few Russian lenses come to me with a fresh layer of tractor grease over the old grease, and a mound of it just outside the threads, needless to say that they were cleaned asap.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Jeez, I've never seen one like that.

[philslizzy]

I remember they smelt like that new. The leather cases of the Zenits had a pong of their own.

[Rick1779]

[Lloydy]

I've just opened a few of the bakelite cases I have that haven't had a lens in them for maybe a couple of years, the smell is still strong. In the lid of some lens cases there is a felt pad that I suspect was impregnated with something that was probably anti misting? I smells very similar to the Siebe Gorman cleaning cloth that was supplied with breathing apparatus for cleaning the face mask. Camera shops sold similar cloths as well. But I do have some of the lens cases without the pad and they smell the same, as does the case for the turret rangefinder.

[sceptic]

I´ve cleaned a couple of Helios-44's (the first, preset version) from what could only be described as wax crayon in the focusing helicoids. They smelled quite alot of wax/petroleum, but one should keep in mind that more or less all moving parts are greased in those old Soviet lenses. The aperture rings (preset and "actuator") are both greased, but that grease is placed outside the optical assembly.

Avoiding petroleum-based lubricants altogether is a bit of an over reaction, though. Modern, synthetic greases don´t contain a wide range of oils (they are tailor-made to only contain the "correct" volatility of oil) and will therefor not bleed. Old grease was sometimes made from a poorly separated mixture of different oils, where the light fraction would eventually escape, which explains hardened grease and foggy lenses/oily aperture blades.

[killwilly]

[edri]

Perhaps it would have been wiser to buy a lens "refurbished by seller" instead of the new lens from old overstock. So the price was a bit higher and I do not love that soviet smell

Where to store this lens? Something happens if this Industar is stored near other lenses?

[Lloydy]

squirting lighter fluid in the does not work....it will loosen the lens by thinning the grease temporarily, but the lighter fuel quickly evaporates and the grease goes stiff again, it also washes the oil that has separated from the grease all around the internals of the lens - mostly onto the glass - where it will stay as the lighter fuel evaporates. The only solution is to clean and replace the grease, and I use a general purpose light synthetic grease such as is used for car wheel bearings or bicycle cranks. There is no point in using high pressure / high temperature greases, they are designed for high pressures and temperatures that are way higher than a lens will ever see.

I re-greased a Mamiya Sekor lens the other day and it was horrible inside, the grease used was the Molybdenum Disulfide type which is notorious for separating in situations where the moving parts don't move for long periods, like a lens that has been stored. there was a black mess that was more like glue making the helicoid stiff, and oil everywhere on the iris and glass.
Which is why I would never use M.D. grease in a lens, even if it was originally in there. I have put a spoonful of this M.D. grease in a plastic tin lid on the bench in my unheated workshop and within a few weeks there was a puddle of oil that had separated from the grease. It is a good grease, in certain applications like car constant velocity joints where it is agitated in use and contained in a rubber boot so that any leeching oil is contained and soon mixed back in.

[guardian]

[Lloydy]

Yes, that's a very site. he describes the very light grease as "fugitive and moving very quickly throughout the lens" - which I would more or less agree with. I think that lighter greases have a higher oil to carrier ratio and therefore are more likely to separate, which is what they are designed to do. There's more lubricating oil, it's as simple as that. The Fixodrop stuff is just a surfactant that stops the spread, which sounds excellent.
I've just done a Tessar earlier today and used some synthetic general purpose grease, it's a lot freer than it was with the old grease, and feels good, although outside in the bitter cold wind it stiffened up a little bit, still better than original though. I think it's a good compromise for lenses that aren't likely to see big extremes of temperature. I think that cameras and lenses that are prepared for Arctic expeditions actually have no lubricants other than graphite dust, which spreads even worse than oil based lubricants. We used graphite dust at work on some precision gauges and instruments and the damn stuff got everywhere.

[guardian]

Yes, I was struck first by that guy's fanatical attention to cleanliness inside the lens . . not just the glass but ALL surfaces. Then I agree strongly with his concerns regarding migration.

I don't really understand the Swiss Fixodrop thing. I don't understand why it is so expensive, and I do not have a handle on how it works. He claims it counteracts migration, and of course that would be a desirable outcome. Goodness knows I already have too many old lenses with moist apertures. They still work fine, but aperture moistness obviously betrays bad things going on throughout the entire interior of such a lens.

Bottom line, I hope that guy is at least somewhat obsessive, but still I think his overall lessons are worth noting perhaps just as a general guide.

[philslizzy]