Vent: Spent 4 hours on a stuck lens helicoid that should've taken 30 min

Working on a Canon 50mm f1.4 FD from the 70s. The helicoid was completely seized with that old dried grease. I tried heat, solvent, even freezing it. Nothing worked until I finally used a strap wrench and a lot of patience. Has anyone else had a lens fight them this hard?

2 comments

2 Comments

benbrown5d ago

...and then you finally got it moving, right? I've had that same fight with a couple old Takumars. What really got me curious is the drying process on the grease. Were you using a penetrating oil or just heat? Because I've found that some of that old Canon stuff from that era hardens almost like a wax, and heat alone won't break it down. You need a specific solvent that can actually dissolve the hardened base. Did you try acetone or just something like WD-40? I'm asking because I had a lens that was stuck solid for two weeks until I let it soak in a bath of isopropyl alcohol for 24 hours and that finally did the trick.

ivan5225d ago

Wait, a full 24 hour soak? That's wild, I would've been too scared to leave it that long!