Nicholas Crista does it again (1 Viewer)

:t:

The left diopter of my Swift Audubon 804R's suddenly broke. What actually broke off was the plastic ring that holds the fold-down rubber eyecup. I thought maybe I could super-glue the plastic ring back on to the eyepiece, but it was more complicated than just that, so I called Nicholas. I sent them out to him last Thursday, and today they arrived repaired. For the quoted price, he not only replaced the broken left diopter, but the right one, too!Seems the original parts were made from "celluloid based synthetic plastic," and he replaced them with parts of "better quality plastic." He also included a new eyepiece rainguard and new objective caps.

Nice!

Howard220 said:

:t:

The left diopter of my Swift Audubon 804R's suddenly broke. What actually broke off was the plastic ring that holds the fold-down rubber eyecup. I thought maybe I could super-glue the plastic ring back on to the eyepiece, but it was more complicated than just that, so I called Nicholas. I sent them out to him last Thursday, and today they arrived repaired. For the quoted price, he not only replaced the broken left diopter, but the right one, too!Seems the original parts were made from "celluloid based synthetic plastic," and he replaced them with parts of "better quality plastic." He also included a new eyepiece rainguard and new objective caps.

Nice!

Click to expand...

That is terrific service. I'll be sending him my 804s if and when they need repairs. The way I baby them, that might be a while. But it's good to know.

Brock

It might be worth sending them to him anyway, as it is possible he'll find and correct defects you weren't ever aware of. No, I don't get a commission! ;-) Mine, he told me when I first sent them in for an overhaul some two years ago, "look like they were made in a hurry."

I recently sent two pairs of older binoculars for Nicolas to clean and collimate. I got them back within a week and the work was excellent. Couldn't beat the price either. Contrast that to my recent experience with somoene who sent in a vintage (1969) pair of Swift Audubons to Land, Sea, and Sky for cleaning and removal of fungus and dust and I have to say their service was disappointing.

I was going to purchase these upon inspection when they returned from Land, Sea and Sky. There was noticable amounts of fungus inside the lenses/prisms when viewing through the objectives. The receipt said they cleaned only the objectives and eyecups, leaving the rest of the binocular looking as though it was never cleaned. I had urged the owner of these bins to go through Nicolas but he wanted to go with Land, Sea, Sky because they are an authorized repair dealer for Swift. He spent at least twice as much going through them as he would Nicolas and in my opinion the work was shoddy. I also noticed a considerable amount of CA which I'm not sure is common with these vintage Audubons.

I have also had work done through Cory Suddarth who does exceptional work, he turned two vintage sets of binoculars that were in need of cleaning and lubrication (lots of fungus) into glass that looks as though it just left the factory. So I do have a basis for comparison in regard to levels of service and workmanship.

Nicolas defintely goes the extra mile. He even tossed in some generic lens caps and a strap for one of my older sets of bins at no additional cost. This is a man who loves his work!