You might try tightly screwing the step ring into a lens, then you'll have more leverage.
You might try tightly screwing the step ring into a lens, then you'll have more leverage.
As a precaution against filters sticking I rub around the threads with a soft pencil, carbon is a good non-greasy lube.
Cut two pieces of wood a bit bigger than the filter and flange. Glue pieces of rubber inner tube to the boards. Place the stuck filter and ring between the boards - rubber side to the parts, press firmly together and unscrew. I've never had this fail to get badly stuck filters or filters and flanges apart. I've taken quite a few rings apart this way where other technicians have failed or even damaged the parts trying. With smaller filters you can just use giant rubber stoppers instead of the boards with inner tube glued on.
Anything that puts side pressure on the rings will distort and tend to jamb the rings and not be helpful - strap wrenches included. Also strap wrenches, unless especially made, tend not to be narrow enough to be useful. Specially made ring wrenches from camera repair suppliers or self made ones if you have a lathe also work, but flat rubber wrenches work better.
You may have the rings apart already but if not hope you succeed. This sort of thing is very frustrating.
Inexpensive substitute for lens wrenches: hose clamps. Arrange a strip of rubber or double sided adhesive between ring and clamp to avoid cosmetic damage.
If you can find at least one thin oil filter wrench, you're already there. I've had to free up galvanically corroded materials like this on bicycles costing thousands of dollars from just about every era of the safety bicycle. A lens wrench or oil filter wrench on the brass filter, a small jeweler's torch and some mechanic's gloves would make quick work of this.
If you can heat the assembly up with a heat gun or hot hair dryer then stick the filter directly onto a flat, uniformly cold surface (like a block of ice or a tile that has been in a freezer for a few hours) it may just thread out easily.
Phil Forrest
There's a lifetime's worth of different approaches to this issue in this thread.
I'm waiting for Mr. Layton's response on what he chose to do (and how it worked).
strap wrenches work well.
if you can, freeze the lens for a couple hours, then try any of the above recomendations including my strap wrench.
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