Sick Grandagon Seeks Specialist (4x300kb imgs)

[Stomie]

Hello & greetings, just joined & first post seeking possible help.

One of my 15 year+ long time reliable companions, (Rodenstock Grandagon 90mm F4.5) has developed what looks like balsum failure resulting in the separation of 2 sets of lens elements (pls see pics). Rodenstock Germany have advised a financially impractical cure & what was my only other known option, Mr Shibata Sun in Kyoto Japan, who had the expertise to re-polish/re-coat, align & re-glue Rodenstock lenses, has made a permanent move to visit his ancestors :(

If anyone here knows of of a reliable & knowledgable lens engineer/technician, I would very much appreciate a referral.

Thanks in advance
Stomie

[David A. Goldfarb]

Separation, polishing, recementing, recoating, and collimation are expensive and not guaranteed to work, since lenses can crack during the separation process, and polishing requires a setup for each lens surface. FocalPoint Lens in Colorado does this work, but it's not cheap.

[Aender Brepsom]

Hi Stomie,

I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, but honestly, if I were you, I'd try to get a "new" used lens to replace this one. 90mm Grandagons can be found quite easily. It may save you lots of hassle.

Aender

[Mark Woods]

What's the image look like? If it's interesting, maybe you could sell or swap it with Galli? ;-)

[Stomie]

Separation, polishing, recementing, recoating, and collimation are expensive and not guaranteed to work, since lenses can crack during the separation process, and polishing requires a setup for each lens surface. FocalPoint Lens in Colorado does this work, but it's not cheap.

Thanks very much for your referral David, I'll mail them but expect to hear the worst.

From a couple of other sources, if anyone is interested, I have been referred to Photography on Bald Mountain at http://www.baldmtn.com and also S.K. Grimes http://www.skgrimes.com/.
Another suggestion was to check listings in View Camera Magazine.

I will be trying all of the above.

Thanks & cheers
Stomie

[Stomie]

Hi Stomie,

I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, but honestly, if I were you, I'd try to get a "new" used lens to replace this one. 90mm Grandagons can be found quite easily. It may save you lots of hassle.

Aender

Thanks Aender, this is probably the way I'll end up going.

cheers
Stomie

[Stomie]

What's the image look like? If it's interesting, maybe you could sell or swap it with Galli? ;-)

Heh! Heh! This was also my thought, as at least I could keep the lens & it wouldn't need to be junked....I am after all, a hopeless sentimentalist :rolleyes:

.....but...who's Galli??

Actually, & I haven't extensively tested the lens, I have found that there are no problems visible past F8.5 - F11.

Thanks for your reply Mark.
Stomie

[Capocheny]

Stomie,

Unfortunately, my 90f4.5 Roddie also had the same problem back when I first started shooting LF.

I was told waaay back then that Rodenstock wouldn't be able to repair the thing. So, the elements were trashed and I kept the shutter.

Even though Schneiders may have had their issues... I've stuck with them and Nikon for almost all of my lenses. :)

If I were in your shoes... I'd also send FocalPoint the lens and have them provide an estimate. One never knows... :)

Cheers

[erie patsellis]

Stomie,
I'll probably get flamed for suggesting this, but if you have a good camera reapairman nearby (old timer), he can remove the element, gently scrape the paint where the two elements meet, wick some light oil (or optical matching oil, if you can find some) and let it draw in by capillary action, works wonders and saves an otherwise unusable lens. Done properly, there's a world of difference, making the lens usable (not perfect, but nearly indidistinguisable from a non damaged lens) I've had several Symmar-S lenses that did this, and after having Rick Oleson tell me about it, I tried it on one, and it worked.


erie

[eddie]

i was just talking with some of the guys on this forum about this. they recemented a lens. looks perfect! it took them several tries to get it right but it looks perfect.

they heated it up in an oven. took it apart. cleaned the balsam off it and recemented it with some kind of UV cement. they were careful to put it back together. but it is worth a try before you toss the lens anyway....even if you screw it up you are kind of in the same boat....AND....you saved lots of money sending it out.

the one guy is alec4444 and over on APUG.org the other is high peak. i will send them a link to this page. maybe they can give you some encouragement.

eddie

[erie patsellis]

IIRC, the biggest problem with Super Angulons and Grandagons is that the only support the innermost element has is the other elements in the cell, centering it without building even a simple collimator would be nearly impossible, from what I've been told.


erie

[Bob Salomon]

Before you get too creative have you checked to see if your lens is covered by your insurance policy?

[Mark Woods]

Here is the link the SK Grimes and how he goes about fixing the lens.

http://www.skgrimes.com/popsci/index.htm

He explains how to do it and what's involoved. Galli is Jim Galli here's a link

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/

He has some "interesting" lenses.

[erie patsellis]

While it's fairly easy to do with elements that are the same diameter (I've recemented a few, harder to follow the webpages than actually do it), Grandagons (and Super Angulons) have a rather unusual structure that makes it nearly impossible (without the factory jigs, or at the very least a collimator) to get the smaller innermost element centered properly.

btw, since Steve's passing, I think Grimes no longer offers optical work, though I could be wrong.

erie

[Alex Wei]

i was just talking with some of the guys on this forum about this. they recemented a lens. looks perfect! it took them several tries to get it right but it looks perfect.

they heated it up in an oven. took it apart. cleaned the balsam off it and recemented it with some kind of UV cement. they were careful to put it back together. but it is worth a try before you toss the lens anyway....even if you screw it up you are kind of in the same boat....AND....you saved lots of money sending it out.

the one guy is alec4444 and over on APUG.org the other is high peak. i will send them a link to this page. maybe they can give you some encouragement.

eddie


Hi, Here in my input since Eddie mentioned our little experiment:)

The lens you have is the one I don't want to do it by myself, the alignment of the lens is critical, you need a special device to keep it that way after separate the lens cell. Also, the cement it used is probably UV cement, heat in the oven will not separate it.

The one lens we did is quite old and didn't worth that much. So we just play around to see how it works and it turn out OK :)

My suggestion is ask a pro to do the job if you want it back as new :)

[seawolf66]

here are three places you also can with :

www.ultraflat.com http://www.unitedcamera.com/



http://www.focalpointlens.com/fp_intro.html

[Richard Kelham]

IIRC, the biggest problem with Super Angulons and Grandagons is that the only support the innermost element has is the other elements in the cell, centering it without building even a simple collimator would be nearly impossible, from what I've been told.


That is definitely a problem with Angulons, not so sure about Super Angulons or Grandagons.


Richard

[erie patsellis]

I can confirm that the Super Angulons are constructed the same way, I looked at mine after typing the above, and sure enought, the innermost elements are simply held in place with optical adhesive.


erie

[Stomie]

For all interested parties & all those who have made suggestions & referrals, this information may be of help. I've had many leads but have not had the time to chase them all up.:( What I have found out is as follows:

Gevorg Vartanyan at ARAX in Kiev Ukraine, http://araxfoto.com/ no longer carry out any type of optical repairs to lenses.
S. K. Grimes Inc in Woonsocket, Rhode Island USA, http://www.skgrimes.com/ also no longer offer an optical re-cementing service but will service & repair shutters & custom design, machine or modify anything photographic, highly recommended.
Ken Ruth at Photography On Bald Mountain, Bald Mountain, Davenport, CA USA, http://www.baldmtn.com:80/ does dismantle, re-align & re-cement optics along with other specialised work.
John Van Stelten at Focal Point, Inc. Louisville Colorado USA, http://www.focalpointlens.com/fp_intro.html also offers comprehensive optical repairs including re-surfacing, re-polishing & re-cementing etc.
Laurie Rogers at the Camera Clinic, Melbourne Australia, http://members.optusnet.com.au/~w.c.rogers/, does not dismantle or repair optics but do custom adjustments to AF systems along with other complex repair work. (highly recommended)
Glenn Davis at Francis Lord Optics, Gladesville, NSW Australia http://www.flo.com.au/Francis%20Lord%20Optics.htm no longer dismantle & re-cement optics although they can re-grind, re-polish & recoat lens surfaces as well as custom design & manufacture optical wedges/prisms etc.
Mr Jack Lipco Gladesville NSW Australia Ph: 02 9875 2874 or 0413 859 123 is the only optics tech in Australia still offering optical repair by disassembly, re-alignment & re-cementing. I spoke with him briefly before he escaped on holiday for a couple of weeks but he assured me he could do the work. Not sur if it's affordable yet :-<

The folks in the US that can do the work are affordable (just) but the additional cost of shipping & insurance makes it impractical for me.

I hope this ramble is of use to someone, & thanks again to all who replied.

And an image of street acquaintances made on the eve of the AC Milan v Liverpool 2007 Champions League Final from a series by me "Naples Is A Tough Town"

Cheers :)
Stomie

Flagello & Associates
http://files.myopera.com/Imagez/albums/92508/IMGXO6VVRU2HK.jpg

[Ted Harris]

The most important thing is to test the lens and see how it affects your images. I one had a 75mm Super Angulon that had some really grim looking coating loss on the rear element ..... had absolutely no impact on images.

[Kevin Crisp]

Grimes personally did this work and his company no longer does it. Focal Point is excellent, they really know what they are doing. I have also used these people: http://www.optil.co.uk/ and their work was super too. And at least on the one project they did for me (separate and cement and coat a 19" protar element) the price was reasonable. Either way this is a $250 to $350 proposition, I suspect.

An oven is a really bad idea on modern cement. If the separation has gone far enough you may be able to disassemble the lens element with the problem and just gently pull it apart, otherwise there is a special high temp solvent used to take apart modern cement. A long soak in acetone may do it if the separation is already well advanced as appears to be the case with yours. I have had to undo some modern repairs and weeks of soaking in acetone will break down the cement. Check the Summers Optical website for details on the high temp solvent if you need to go that route. If you can just pull it apart and clean it up with acetone then recementing is not that hard but alignment is the hard part once you learn to get the surfaces really clean and learn to judge the size of the drop of cement you need. A UV bulb can be used for pre-cure and curing. Where lenses elements are of different diameters the alignment gets really tricky and with a wide angle, it is really important.

You might consider a new lens for all of the above reasons. Or give the repair a try since selling it will get you the price of used shutter. Good luck.