Removing hood of Noctilux 0.95

[egrossman]

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The built-in hood of my Noctilux is a little stuck as a result of getting a few grains of sand in the hood mechanism. Is there a way that I can remove the hood for cleaning without sending it in to repair?

 

Thanks.

 

[Rangefinder]

You may wish to try to clean the grit out before removing the hood.  You can take a bit of 35mm film and cut a small "hook" in it.  Slip it between the hood and the barrel and move it around the barrel.  Hopefully, the hook with dislodge the sand.  I've done this with the focusing ring and got lucky with the process.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Mike

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[egrossman]

Thanks Mike. I tried it and it didn't work for me.

[Herr Barnack]

If you can see where the grains of sand are lodged using a small bright flashlight, you might want to try squeezing the lens hood 90 degrees off axis from then and gently tapping the lens hood on a hard surface.  This could possibly cause the lens hood to flex a tiny bit, creating a few thousandths of room where the grains are stuck and allowing them to dislodge when the lens hood is tapped. 

 

Another trick would be for assistant to use a can of compressed photographic lens cleaning air to try to blow the sand grains out while the lens hood is flexed.

 

If neither of these techniques works, you may end up needing to send your Nocti in for repair.

[wlaidlaw]

I used a vacuum cleaner to get dust build up out of this gap on my Noctilux. I taped a piece of garden hose into the nozzle in our large and powerful garden and garage Aqua-Vac cleaner. You can then trim and squash the hose to be the same shape as the gap between the hood and lens. As Carlos says above, you have to squeeze the hood gently to release the grip on the dirt particles. It is a two person job, one squeezing the hood, the other with the hose from the vacuum. I used a similar technique to get the dust out of the surround of the retractable lens on my wife's Leica V-Lux 20 digital, which was jamming on switch on/off. 

 

Wilson