[rollei_list] OT: Culminar again / FS

From: Jan Decher <Jan.Decher@xxxxxxx>
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 10:00:52 -0500
Marc, 

Thanks for your equally entertaining and informative answer. It almost makes me 
want to take up smoking, but with a spouse who is a chronic disease 
epidemiologist that would mean life on the street ;-)

I will try to "operate" on the Culminar myself as my local shop wants $95 for 
degreasing and re-lubing the focussing mount.  Now how do you get the focussing 
mount apart?  Remove those tiny screws in the barrel sides, then turn helicoid 
until it completely unscrews?

Do you have a picture of the Reproflex with the Culminar head?  As you know, I 
am interested in everything Novoflex.


======Friday For Sale: 

Practica FX 3 with shutter problems. Includes WL finder with unique slide-in 
prism viewer in leather case
 original "Praktika" box & paperwork, 
Schacht Ulm Travegon 3.5/35mm (focus helicoid does not engage)
all in sturdy small camera case
$75.00 + $15 shipping

Jan 


On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:07 AM, FreeLists Mailing List Manager wrote:
>> Jan
> Welcome back! The Culminar is a pretty good performer, all in all.  It is an 
> older lens, dating from the 1950's 
> (I am too lazy to fire up my copy of THE LENS COLLECTOR'S VADE MECUM to check 
> all the details, 
> but I have owned and used several copies of this lens).  The focal length is 
> one very forgiving 
> when used on a miniature format camera.
> I have vague memories of the Culminar lens head being used separately but I 
> forget the 
> details.  Whoops!  Hold hard, lads!  Jan finally forced me out of my chair 
> and to walk five feet 
> to check out the dust-gathering holdings on my shelves and there, voila!, is 
> a Reproflex reflex 
> housing in LTM with this very lens.  The Reproflex was made by Karl Müller, 
> Jr, of 
> Memmingen, later to become Novoflex.  I am not certain what the thread on the 
> lens head might be 
> but that on the focusing adapter to fit it to the Reproflex is Leica thread 
> mount -- Novoflex used 
> Steinheil lenses until the Steinheil family closed station and faded away, 
> back in the 
> Longago, in '62, and these lenses and adapters had Leica thread-mount (LTM) 
> -- NOT M39 -- 
> threads connecting the adapters and lenses.  (To complete the saga, Novoflex 
> then used lenses from 
> Dr Staeble which had a Praktina bayonet-mount connector, but that is a tale 
> for a different day.)
> I have shot with this device and the lens is quite capable but, again, keep 
> in mind that it is a three-element lens.
> Finally, the Germans on both sides of the Great Divide had a horrible problem 
> in obtaining decent 
> lubricants through the 1950's, and, while the West Germans were never reduced 
> to the use of the 
> sort of regurgitated cow guts Carl Zeiss Jena was forced to use during this 
> period, quality 
> lubricants were scarce even in West Germany.  The answer to your plight is 
> simple.  Disassemble the 
> lens gently and use lighter fluid (there are virtues to being a smoker, 
> albeit the 
> anti-smoking zealots will never acknowledge such) to completely flush out the 
> old lubricant -- you 
> might need some pipe cleaners (there are virtues to being a pipe smoker ... ) 
> to clean out the 
> nooks and crannies but, in the end, you get bare metal.  Then pack with SMALL 
> quantities of 
> standard wheel-bearing grease.  (I must have caused heart palpitations in 
> Richard Knoppow with 
> these words.)  Work the lens units back into mesh and exercise them gently 
> until you have spread 
> the grease through both sets of threads.  If it is still a bit harsh in the 
> turning, then you 
> need some more grease, but be careful not to overdo it.  In the end, your 
> lens will be 
> returned to battery.  It ought to take fifteen minutes or so.  I have done a 
> number of lenses 
> this way and just checked my 2.8/18cm CZJ Sonnar which I use with my 
> Ha$$elblad 2000 FC/M.  I 
> rebuilt that lens this way in 1994, and it still turns as smoothly as a 
> politician does when 
> someone says, "campaign contribution".
> Marc
> msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
[rollei_list] OT: Culminar again / FS

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