Got a beauty of a lens, but need some external cleaning: which products to use?

[wolan]

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Hi,

from beautiful UK I received today this gem of a lens (with original lens hood!).

I'd like to clean the metallic part and the leather grip and try to bring back the original shining, can you suggest me products for this?

Thank you

 

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[fotografr]

Outt looks pretty clean to me right now. I would send that question to someone at Leica service. When my equipment comes back from repair it always looks great.

[Kwesi]

I recently used a dry new toothbrush to clean the grooves and it worked very nicely. Be careful of the pained surfaces so you don't chip the paint. try to make sure the loosened debris doesn't get into the lens

[tobey bilek]

polishing paste is abrasive.  Chrome is .001” .  You end up with one brass spot.   I suggest alcohol + cotton bud or cotton ball  used lightly.  

They make chrome polish for cars.  Very mild, but still abrasive.  

Use the alcohol and stop is my advice.  This is easy to ruin. 

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Wolan,

Did you know that your lens was finished in a soft "brushed" chrome for most of it and it was never meant to look shiny?

What looks like leather is "Vulcanite" which is a Leitz/Leica proprietary form of what is sometimes called "Ebonite" when you come across it in its generic form. This is a type of hard rubber. Not leather. It was originally developed years ago for electrical insulators & over the years has also been used for things such as those black parts near the points of old fountain pens. Leitz/Leica have used it for many years because of its gripability, durability, beauty, etc. 

Your lens was made between about 1960 & about 1965. It is optically pretty much on par with a number of contemporary lenses if it is used at the apertures of F5.6, F8 & F11. At other apertures it is still very good by contemporary standards.

This lens has a removable lens head which can be used on a mechanical Visoflex I, II, IIa & III. It can also be used on either of the "M" Bellows. The lens head requires appropriate adapters to connect the lens head to the Visoflex or Bellows. It is a very good close up lens all of the way from Infinity to 1 : 1.

Ask here to find out more.

Enjoy your new lens,

Best Regards,

Michael

[spydrxx]

Your lens housing looks pretty clean. I've owned a number of these over the years and you should really enjoy using it. As far as cleaning the housing goes, you don't want to create shiny spots. The alcohol is a good idea. Usually I've used a microfiber cloth lightly moistened with distilled water, and immediately dried. Isopropyl alcohol only if necessary and very gently. As far as cleaning the vulcanite, again, lightly water moistened microfiber cloth.