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Repairing vulcanite on a Leica II


philipus

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During a walk with my wife this summer, I dropped my Leica II which caused a large piece of vulcanite to come off. I was very kindly given some vulcanite by an RFF member and I have now repaired the camera. I can't claim to be an expert at this but for my purposes the result is good enough. In case it is of assistance to others I've written a brief guide on my site.

 

Below's a before and after photo.

 

Cheers

Philip

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Hi Philip, great how you mastered this. Yes, vulcanite is very bristle when cold, therefore here some tips how I am doing similar things:1. remove the body from the shell - vulcanite becomes much more elastic when heated (and I do not want to heat up the camera inside) 2. heat up the piece of vulcanite you will use as a patch (use hairdryer) and cut a bit bigger than the place you want to patch. It does not need to be precisely the shape of missing part. In your case I would put bottom cover on its place. 3. glue the piece of vulcanite you have just cut-off to the shell using doble sided scotch tape 4. heat up the shell on the place to be repaired ( from inside, so that aluminium keep the heat longer) and then from outside as well. Use hairdryer, until vulcanite will be elastic. Piece of vulcanite that you use as a patch shall overlap the vulcanite on a body shell 5. with stanley knife cut both vulcanites - this give give you exact match of old vulcanite and a patch 6. remove vulcanite patch, remove cut-off vulcanite from the shell (you might need to heat up again with hairdryer) 7. heat up and glue the vulcanite patch to the shell. Vulcanite from older Lieca (pre-war) is quite elastic when warmed up. I noticed that vulcanite from IIIf and early Ms is bristle even if heated up.In your case now you could fill in the small gaps with either black, hard wax, or what I am doing - taking transparent, 2 component epoxy glue, mixing some black paint to get the same color tone as original vulcanite and using small wooden stick I apply the expoxy mixture to the gaps.jerzy

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Thank you Jerzy, those are simply excellent suggestions. I knew there must be a better way to get this done in a more seamless fashion. For the next piece which falls off I shall use your method. Mine being a pre-war camera the vulcanite might then be a bit more flexible.

 

cheers

philip

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