Cleaning oil off iris blades

[Craig Tuffin]

I have a beautiful 18" f4.5 Cooke Portrait lens. It's a barrel lens so no shutter to worry about. I just noticed some oil on the iris blades and was wondering what the best and safest way to clean them is.

This is a BIG lens so the blades are quite large. The last thing I want is to adjust the iris and tear out one of the blades in the process because the oil has become sticky.

[eddie]

it is junk. send it to me.

do not mess with it. they do not come apart very easily.

i would not f with it. oil on aperture blades means nothing as there is no shutter etc etc. yes, it may collect a bit of dust on them but i think you could do far more harm than the dust would.

you will not tear out the blades. never force anything!

[Craig Tuffin]

Thanks Eddie!

That sounds like great advice.

I was going to give it to you because I was disappointed about the oil, but now that you've told it will be fine, I'll just keep it :p

[BrianShaw]

Eddie's wrong. It won't be fine. It's even more of a piece of junk than he thinks it is. I'll send my address... I'm closer to the great Pacific dumping ground than he is!

p.s. I once took apart an enlarging lens to clean the aperture blades. NEVER AGAIN!