Anyone knows a coachbuilter / sheet metal worker able to level a dent on camera body?

CMoore · Sep 10, 2018

Function over form.
Tools always look "worse" when the next owner gets them.
If they work properly.......
Good Luck with the dent.

Billy Axeman · Sep 10, 2018

cooltouch said:
Care to share with us the name of this shop? I have a eye-levell prism for an F2 that got tapped on the very top of the prism. Considering how much these blasted things coust nowadays, it would be cheaper to get it repaired, I figure. Probably much cheaper. So I wouldn't mind sending it to your shop if they could fix it.

Hi cooltouch, sorry for the slow response. This shop 'Kamera-Service' is in the Netherlands with a web site here:
http://www.kamera-service.info/index.php/en/
They are advertising being Leica, Hasselblad and Rollei specialists but actually they can do everything you can think of. I had some lenses CLA'd by them (Pentax, Olympus), and I can recommend them.

Marco Gilardetti · Sep 11, 2018

Oh please spare me the nauseating refrain "a camera is just a tool"... It's silly, it's far from reality, and most of all it gets inappropriately repeated over and over and over on this forum every day.

A hammer is "a tool". A wrench is "a tool". A camera is a complex mechanism made of thousands of delicate parts, not "a tool". It has a body and it almost has a soul. And as all complex mechanisms it obviously needs great care and periodic cleaning, lubrication and adjusting if one really wants it to "work properly".

If anyone sees little difference between a camera and a hammer, then it's really no surprise if his/her camera are "worse" when they're passed to the next owner.

I humbly suggest everyone to take better care of each own's equipment. Unfortunately these cameras are no longer made: every camera damaged or broken is gone forever.

CMoore · Sep 11, 2018

Sorry you are nauseated.
All of my complex mechanisms have been to a camera tech after i purchased them. Many times the cost of the CLA/Repair was more the the "Value" of the camera.
All of my cameras function as they were designed to. I don't care what they look like.
If they get dropped, rained on, dragged against a rock or building, that is just natural use.
A dent, smash, scrape, does not equate....."Gone Forever".
ALL my cameras are still here.
Good Luck

Marco Gilardetti · Sep 11, 2018

Good luck to your cameras. Poor things.

Alan Gales · Sep 11, 2018

Marco Gilardetti said:
Oh please spare me the nauseating refrain "a camera is just a tool"... It's silly, it's far from reality, and most of all it gets inappropriately repeated over and over and over on this forum every day.

A hammer is "a tool". A wrench is "a tool". A camera is a complex mechanism made of thousands of delicate parts, not "a tool". It has a body and it almost has a soul. And as all complex mechanisms it obviously needs great care and periodic cleaning, lubrication and adjusting if one really wants it to "work properly".

If anyone sees little difference between a camera and a hammer, then it's really no surprise if his/her camera are "worse" when they're passed to the next owner.

I humbly suggest everyone to take better care of each own's equipment. Unfortunately these cameras are no longer made: every camera damaged or broken is gone forever.

I can see your point. I tend to think of cameras as tools myself. Some are beautiful though. I guess it's like how some people see a Ferrari as a car while others see it as a work of art. I suppose it can be both.

shutterfinger · Sep 11, 2018

Marco Gilardetti said:
Oh please spare me the nauseating refrain "a camera is just a tool"... It's silly, it's far from reality, and most of all it gets inappropriately repeated over and over and over on this forum every day

Some tools are simple one piece devices such as a Wrench, some are two or three parts joined together such a hammer or pliers, others are several hundred such as a camera to several thousand parts such as a satellite, rocket, or other space craft.
From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary: tool definition:
a : something (such as an instrument or apparatus) used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession.
If you sit a camera on a shelf and look at it without ever using it then its a display piece.

Marco Gilardetti · Sep 12, 2018

Oh, come on...!!! Now even the quote from a dictionary to tell me that a vintage near-mint 1960 Nikon F has to be treated like a hammer! Or a rocket that gets destroyed in space! Please give me a break!!!

bernard_L · Sep 12, 2018

From the title of your thread, it sounds like you are ready to take apart yourself the top cover of your Nikon F. Once this is done, the minor dent is (IMO) easy to fix. Lay the cover upside down on a hard flat surface. Use a rectangular toolpiece (hardwood or metal), hit that with a hammer to flatten the dent from the inside, starting gentle and progressively stronger until the dent is almost gone (know when to stop). The only pitfall I can think of is if the tool is not level, and impacts via its corners rather than its center (on the dent).

Marco Gilardetti · Sep 12, 2018

bernard_L said:
From the title of your thread, it sounds like you are ready to take apart yourself the top cover of your Nikon F.

Well no, not really... But I assume it would be an easy task for my customary camera mechanic. I have in mind to ask him to check the camera anyway, so I may carry the top plate around while it is disassembled and he's CLAing.

However, I have learned "the hard way" that metal not always react in the way that seems logical, sometimes you hammer it on one side but it get stressed/pressed and deforms the other way around. So I think I may leave this delicate work to someone who knows exactly what he's doing, has the proper tools, a reference table or levelling surface, and so on.

Perhaps the brass musical instrument mender is the right idea, but at present time I don't know any.

Anyone knows a coachbuilter / sheet metal worker able to level a dent on camera body?

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