Helical on Gaoersi?

[Blair Ware]

I am looking for some feedback from Gaoersi owners.

I recently picked up a used body with the 90mm mount and on inspection find quite a bit of grease coming out of the helical mount, enough that it is smeared onto the area where the lens mounts and also on the inside and outside of the helical.

Does the helical come factory PACKED with an excessive amount of grease or am I seeing the result of a previous owner getting a little to enthusiastic?

Should this be cleaned and if so, how?

All suggestions and insight will be appreciated.

Blair

[Archphoto]

Any exessive grease should be removed with a Q-tip and some grease solvent afterwards like lighterflued or naphta.

You will need a box of Q-tips for this job: remove the grease, not spread it.
This sound horrible......

I just wander what the previous owner is trying to hide ????

Peter

[GPS]

You have to understand - Gaoersi is a Chinese manufacturer. What is not in manufacturing tolerances (smooth helical) must come with "quite a bit of grease" as you put it. Either from the manufacturer or the previous owner, the goal is the same - to make it smoother. Soft tissue women use to take off make up could be used to get rid of the worst.

[oris642]

I'm the seller (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=51213&highlight=gaoersi+90mm) and I wasn't trying to hide anything. The cone(s) came that way when I bought the camera. I do however recall Paul Droluk (owner of Fotoman, now closed) saying somewhere on the net that Gaoersis greased their cones a lot because their machining of the threads on the helical mount was not as precise as Fotoman's. If I find that thread I'll post it.

The person who bought my 180mm cone here might want to chime in too as to whether that cone was also "greased up".

[oris642]

I found the missive from Paul Droluk:

"HFM - our Helical Focus Mount is truly a thing of beauty, if I do say so myself. It's buttery rotational feel is the result of a 6-start, fine pitch helicoid thread. The Gaoersi HFM utilizes a single high pitch coarse thread, just like a screw, which results in a rough, imprecise feel. While the rough feel can be masked, to some degree, by a generous application of thick grease, this will lead to problems of high torque when subjected to cold temperatures or migration (read: mess) at elevated temperatures. Additionally, last we checked, it appeared as though the Gaoersi HFM utilized the same distance/DOF markings for several different focal lengths."

From: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum186/56161-gaoersi-vs-fotoman.html , scroll down to message #7, 6th paragraph.

[Blair Ware]

Thanks all for the feedback. Guess the first task it to clean it up and see if it continues to leak. It's pretty much unusable if it does as it will make a mess of lenses and will collect dust in normal use. I hope for the best.

Blair