• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Binocular Repairs and Cleaning (1 Viewer)

Frozen focusers on little binoculars:

I saw a trick described for un-feezing glued-up focusers on the little
'bare-knuckle binoculars', the spy binocs where you can see the prism housings
on the outside. It involved a butane blowtorch, though...that seemed a bit risky.
I tried a hairdryer but it wasn't hot enough. I use a candle now, to get the heat into
that area without baking the barrels as much. The low-soot soy teacandles.

Those cool-looking rectangular sharp Ofuna opera glasses and some Ofuna binoculars
respond well. Once the spindle moves I drop a little WD-40 in and the 'glue'
turns into disollved goo and particles for cleanout. It doesn't let go until
150-170 F and then it suddenly gives (and then you stop heat!). Then you can work
some grease in and the cooling will help pull it in as the volatiles from the WD40
stop bubbling.
 
One for the opera-glass collectors:

Sometimes you will a messy yellow 'crazing' in the objectives.
This is the Canada Balsam drying from an achromatic doublet.

First step is to remove the objective and soak it in some nail polish
remover overnight. I use a Pyrex cup with foil cap. Then it should
cleave apart easily with a little knife blade (be gentle). You can rub
the residue with a swab while it's still wet and use some fresh
polish remover to finish up.

Next, if you're a purist you can put it back together with Canada Balsam.
I leave it air-spaced, since there is plenty of light and it lasts eternally
that way. Make sure the correct surfaces mate up (observe the curve
when you cleave).

Then place it in the holder and screw it back in. Voila!
There may be rainbow interference patterns for air-spacing. Tiny tape
spacers can fix that, but I find the faint rainbows kind of 'jazzy' looking,
for nouveau-riche customers spiffing up to go to their first opera or play
in the big city. They don't get in the way of the view out.


This technique would apply to old prismatic objectives, too,
but you should consider the balsam cement in that case.
Light loss means more in a higher -powered Keplerian scheme.
 
Audubon Gold, internal reflections

This is another Audubon I picked up to restore, I have a mint one, which I thought pretty good, which does suffer from reflections a little, which I put down to a quirk of the model. This one, had alignment issues, a few smudges inside and seemed to have very bad reflections, giving a very glared image. I stripped it down, and before re-assembly, matt blacked all the inside body and prism cradle edges and any likely reflective surface I could find, including the inside fixings for the strap attachments and inside the prism cover plates. Now re assembled and collimated, I am stunned by the difference, it is really terrific now, sharp, great resolution, no reflections or glare at all, optically it beats my mint one and has better color resolution than my HR5 FMC model. It seems the internal reflection issue is an easy fix, so will try the same on my mint one.
 

Attachments

  • SWIFT-AUDUBON-GOLD-1.JPG
    SWIFT-AUDUBON-GOLD-1.JPG
    84.3 KB · Views: 198
  • SWIFT-AUDUBON-GOLD-2.JPG
    SWIFT-AUDUBON-GOLD-2.JPG
    100.7 KB · Views: 167
  • SWIFT-AUDUBON-GOLD-3.JPG
    SWIFT-AUDUBON-GOLD-3.JPG
    76.3 KB · Views: 166
Last edited:
Now that must be a satisfying tweak!
So they neglected suppression even way back when....off and on.
Looks like smooth grey stopped-tunnels up front. It would be nice if those
were flat black and ribbed. I have seen bumpy-bitumen there, but only on one
model. It worked great, but it must be a pain to work with that.
 
Now that must be a satisfying tweak!
So they neglected suppression even way back when....off and on.
Looks like smooth grey stopped-tunnels up front. It would be nice if those
were flat black and ribbed. I have seen bumpy-bitumen there, but only on one
model. It worked great, but it must be a pain to work with that.

ON, yes, very satisfying, I love the view out of these now, I had intended to restore and sell on, but I might sell the cosmetically mint one now, unless I can tweak that one to be as good..
 
For fun, you might want to try putting hoods on the others.
A PVC pipe threaded-to-smooth adapter with flat black spray paint on the threads
and filler wrap for the binoc body can do wonders. As long as the fov cone clears the
threads. I need to figure some custom-fitting scheme for that. Felt bumper is hard to
work with. The threaded hood brings my Yosemites deep blacks and richer colors.
(especially with fog and snow glare).
 
For questions about whether you have troubles with contrast,
whether you need some internal cleaning, and how well your
cleaning/internal-damping is going, I've found a way to make a nice
resolution/contrast chart. Using MS-Word (or other word processor),
you can type a line, copy it below, and then adjust the black-grey-white
level if your wd. processor lets you set custom colors via "RGB" (red-green-blue)
levels. In Word, I highlighted, clicked on font/color, went to 'more colors',
and typed the same values for r and g and b. The lines fade nicely as the
value goes from r=g=b=0 (black) to 50, 100, 150, 175, and 225 (a ghost)

You can cut/paste the block and bump the font down or up for a combination test.
It's interesting to directly see how contrast effects the resolution. As the font gets
smaller, you cannot go as far down in the fading contrast.

After a nice cleaning job, the ~1950 Mayflower 7x35 wides narrowly lost to the
2012 Leupold Yosemite 8x30s in middling light. With hoods, the Yosemites pulled
more clearly ahead. Uncleaned nicotine-film AMC 603s didn't make it past
150 rgb grey at 11pts. Font size is highly variable now, so it's all relative
to the same page and font.
 
Last edited:
Hello Optic Nut,

Lens hoods do make a difference. In photography, those hoods were the first accessory for any lens. Commercially available hoods like the Bushwhackers are not cheap, but they certainly save labour. Unfortunately, they come in too few sizes or lack enough elasticity to stay on some binoculars. Incidentally, I could not figure what one is supposed to do with the included washer. I wonder why some binoculars do not just recess the objectives, sufficiently, to act as lens hoods. My guess is that they want to keep the length and weight down.
In a similar vein, as a wearer of eyeglasses, I need some shielding from stray light hitting the eyepieces. Some binoculars handle this better than others: my Nikon Porros,EII and SE were poorer in this respect than a Leica BN.
 
Definitely an 'under-accessorized' area.
I'd like some nice 'slide-open' hoods like they had on the WW-1 Galileans!
Putting correction lenses against the ocular can get your eye in the shade.
Complicated for astigmatism though.
 
Definitely an 'under-accessorized' area.
I'd like some nice 'slide-open' hoods like they had on the WW-1 Galileans!
Putting correction lenses against the ocular can get your eye in the shade.
Complicated for astigmatism though.

Hello Optic Nut,

Pop up eye cups and slide out hoods sound good to me. I saw some Barr & Stroud WWII binoculars with some kind of twist hoods which made perfect sense.

Today, in the morning, I was pulling my hat around to shade my eyes, and cupping my hand over the objectives to improve the view.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur :hi:
 
"The Horror"!.

Photographers used to pull a black cloth over the head. Some variant on that.
A black fleece tucked under the jacket trailing back...jaunty.

I have to come up with some slick means of fabrication for a front hood.
A slip-on tube with spiralled black yarn bonded inside. Ribbed irising is the best!
There are some definite ideas percolating. My PVC knuckles are a clunky.
 
Here's something I've been meaning to develop for a while:

Re-forming damaged threads with epoxy.
You need one set of mating threads to be nice and smooth
and the other to be undersized and rough (or sanded to that).

I got a chance on a ~1947 pair of "Best Tokyo" 8x30s. The base threads
for the eyecup on one side were pitted and didn't hold the smooth eyecup
threads. So:

----I used a scrubbing pad to clear up the base aluminum threads
----Heated the eyecup a little and rub/melted candle wax into threads and nearby
surfaces
----wiped excess odd but left threads "shiny"
----prepped a little 5-minute epoxy
----waiting for thickening to start
----quickly daubed epoxy on the base and in the eyecup
----settled the eyecup on and waited 15 minutes

Result:
The threads held on and worked, but were very tight. I also had to fight
cross-threading when ptting things together. It was pretty good, but I would really
like something better. It's hard to make 'a little thicker' wax coating without
losing the threads.


Plan for next instance:

----if the fit is very loose, first scrub the damaged threads well (bristle brush)
and wipe very little epoxy on, clearing excess. This might give me enough thread
to catch the other side, and fill space so the epoxy 'swelling' doesn't make things
so tight.
---brass-bristle things after 10 hours and go do the above-mention full molding
...hopefully the threads would be aligned for the 2nd molding.
 
Thread damping grease.

I use an American product bought from my local boat chandlers.
It is called Ultra Tef-Gel made by USS, Magnolia Park, Fl 33407.
Not cheap but a little goes a long way.
 
I wish I knew of a vehicle/solvent to sneak it into more places.
Basically, to ...thin it out ...carry it down a little gap ...and evaporate
(but without dissolving other things)..

Most of those are kind of banned now...like trichlor.
Maybe a little naptha (lighter fluid...careful!)..
 
I just repaired a cracked focus wheel. It was a simpler break: it make have taken a hit,
but the wheel opened out a little, probably due to conctraction of the plastic. The
attachment still worked fine. I took a cue from dentists: first, open up the cavity,
then pack it at just the right moment. I:

---ran a single lyer of #220 sandpaper back-n-forth in the crack, flipped it, and
sanded at the other side of the crack

--once the crack was big enough, I folded the sandpaper double and graound away some more

---once 5-minute epoxy began to thicken, I swiped it in with a shaved-taper toothpick

---a little excess on the top, and when it get very thick (but still moveable), I put a
poly sandwich bag on, used the back of a pen-blade to press gnurling into the epoxy
to match the knowb waited another 2 minutes, and yanked the bag....it looks nice!
...just needs a little sand/degloss later.

Due to the #220 sanding it's a solid mend.

I have a focuser with a whole chunk missing elsewhere...this is just a warm-up for that.
I think I can make a "gnurl-mold" of a good section, paste epoxy over a filler sheet, and
then press the gnurl molding on at the right time. A lot of pondering to first, but I'm getting
experience with this case.
 
WW11 Optical&Film Supply Co 7x50- Restored

I posted a while back when I got this old binocular, it was in a bit of a state, but I have now finished restoring this old bin and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, although it must be said, these WW11 7X50s are very easy to work on compared with many vintage binoculars. I dismantled, cleaned inside and out, cleaned all the optics and prisms, matt black inside the body, re-blacked the casing, cleaned and greased the diopters, and lacquered the metal parts, new eye cups. It is a pretty good binocular, nice and clear, not quite as sharp as the Sard, but still good. It looks to be pretty much the same binocular as the Bausch&Lomb BU Ships MK1 7x50, so likely an early supply from the US, possibly during the lend/lease period. Some before and after photo's and link to original post. http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=2956344#post2956344
 

Attachments

  • OPT&FILM-BEFOREx2.JPG
    OPT&FILM-BEFOREx2.JPG
    65.2 KB · Views: 111
  • OPT&FILM-AFTER.JPG
    OPT&FILM-AFTER.JPG
    56.3 KB · Views: 102
  • OPT&FILM-AFTER.JPG2.JPG
    OPT&FILM-AFTER.JPG2.JPG
    56.1 KB · Views: 87
  • OPT&FILM-AFTER.JPG3.JPG
    OPT&FILM-AFTER.JPG3.JPG
    61.3 KB · Views: 90
Last edited:
Another beautiful job! Lovely midnight black shadows looking through the objectives.
Yes, some oldies are fantastic to work on. Brands like Thorobred copied the nice mechanics,
and many Binolux models are 'polite' to work on. Mass-made 6x30s for the soldier...not so much.

I'm noticing the stepped-hooding in front that was fairly common on the good stuff 1935-1969.
And those big horse-shoe fronts..

You've got a real knack for re-coating the outsides. I have a few nasty-looking
WWI prismatics waiting for me to master that art. I'd like to make a pebbled finish with that
flexible gloss shirt paint: a cross between textured and armored. Must practice.
I've been spoiled lately with more recent stuff and Korean-assembled repro-models.
(like the KMart binolux knock-offs w/synthetic grease) ..fresh and classic at once.

Nice Meopta 8x30 in that thread. "Collectible" size.
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 9 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top