Possible to make an aperture ring stiffer?

The Summarit 50mm f/2.5 rarely gets off my M6, as it's so lightweight and the focus tab is so pleasant to use (not to mention the picture quality). However, I never liked the aperture ring on this lens, it offers very little resistance and I need to be careful with accidental turns.

Is it possible to make it more stiff?

I believe the traditional solution is to use damping grease. I recently used some to fix a loose tripod head. Worked great but to get it on the right part requires disassembly.

This is what I used. From Amazon. It comes in many different damping grades but This one seemed right for my application.

Berger Sciences Nyogel 767A Synthetic Damping Grease by Nye Lubricant (25g Jar)

That's my only complaint with the Summarit 35/2.4 too, although it's not a big enough issue for me to attempt to fix it.

I have heard that it's possible to stiffen the aperture ring, but it's not something I'd attempt myself. DAG seems to be the go-to guy for this sort of repair.

If the aperture ring has click stops (detents ?) then I would think it would suffice to replace the spring that pushes the little steel ball into the detents with a stiffer one. I too would allow a competent technician to do this....one who may have parts and may well have done this sort of thing hundreds of times.

Thanks guys, this is encouraging. Actually this reminds me of the shutter ring on my Mamiya lens. I made it much stiffer by tightening the leaf spring responsible for the stop clicks, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that a Leica lens probably operates in a similar way.

Buy a junk lens off ebay any make, any mount. Remove the screws that hold the mount plate to the barrel of the lens. Pay attention to the position of the mount, lift it off carefully as there may be a spring or two under it. The aperture lever may be notched or some other special mounting. Once the mount is off you can inspect the aperture ring mounting, some will just slide off. Most lens for 35mm use a compression spring under a steel ball for the click stop. The ball is 1/16 inch or smaller, the spring 1/32 - 3/64.
Now that you are familiar to aperture ring assembly you may proceed to dismantle your Leica lens. Chip lens have contacts mounted to the mount and a more complicated setup but are mechanically similar.

Assuming this is the typical spring in a hole with a ball bearing atop that engages with notches on the inside of the aperture ring, then placing some packing in the hole under the spring will increase the tension and give a more positive click stop.

Вormental said:

The Summarit 50mm f/2.5 rarely gets off my M6, as it's so lightweight and the focus tab is so pleasant to use (not to mention the picture quality). However, I never liked the aperture ring on this lens, it offers very little resistance and I need to be careful with accidental turns.

Is it possible to make it more stiff?

Click to expand...

Yes it is. In 1985 and on another trip to Germany in 1986 I picked up two Leica bodies, one each trip along with firstly a 50mm and on the second trip a 35mm lens. The 50mm was excessively tight and I asked the camera shop salesman, who eventually became a good friend and even visited us in Australia, what can we do about this.

He telephoned the service department who suggested we send it straight back to them for adjustment. A replacement wasn't going to happen as the serial numbers wouldn't match the import documents into Australia. The lens was sent off and it returned a few weeks later, literally on the day I was flying back home. They did fix it and it was perfect, silky smooth and it needed more than a nudge to move it. The 35mm unit a year later was as loose as anything, same treatment; which was rather annoying. Two trips to Germany two M6 cameras and both trips toting a camera body without a lens until the return journey.

As a side note, I picked up a Leica R4 SLR with a 180 f/2.8 for a mate back home in 1986. I also had my Nikon F3 with me and among the lenses I had was a Nikkor 180mm f/2.8. The Nikkor worked pretty much perfectly, but the Leica 180 was so tight that if you had sweaty hands, your grip slipped unless you had a death grip on it. I was gaily informed that the helices were made that way so that in 10 years of daily hard use, the lens would still work as if it was brand new. I was not impressed with the mechanics of the lens, but it was as good as the Nikkor in the optics department.

Mick.

@Mick Fagan nice! thanks for sharing.

To make matters a bit more interesting about Teutonic high end stuff, at the start of a 3 month German and Spanish holiday, we landed in Munich and headed straight to my sister in-laws place in a Munich suburb. The next day I cycled to the local camera shop, which was also a full Leica dealer. There I picked up a much wished for and pre-booked Leica Ultravid 10x25 BR binoculars. These were especially sought after as both my wife and I wear spectacles and with these binoculars we could literally hand the binoculars to each other and view them through our spectacles without needing any adjustment, except for pupillary distance.

Looking through the binoculars after getting back home we noted what seemed to be some kind of dust in one of the oculars, right where you don't want dust as it was in the centre. Headed straight back to the shop; the owner was aghast. He telephoned their head office and I could not believe what I was hearing; they needed to be sent back to be serviced. There were no other units in any of the other full Leica dealers in Munich; we checked. We headed off to Spain the next morning to walk through some breathtaking NP's and in two instances, world renowned bird sanctuaries without our Leica binoculars for 4 weeks; miffed, would be one of the adjectives oft mentioned.

Upon returning back to Germany, I immediately visited the Leica dealer, not back yet. We had another 6 weeks of holidaying right across the top of Germany from Poland to Netherland in all kinds of NP's and bird sanctuaries with a pair of borrowed 40 year old Russian binoculars. The Leica Ultravid binoculars were ready when we got back to Munich and getting ready to fly back home. They have been perfect and unbelievable for our 8 years of ownership, but I'm now pretty much unimpressed with some things Teutonic. Except my wife; of course.

Mick.

I will suggest you line the inner side of the ring with so self-adhesive copper conductor tape, with out getting the tape wrinkled in the process, for a completely smooth action.

Also,stop by a Walmart or a craftshop and look for the pale green "Martha Stewart" paper hole punch.

It's for drilling clean, round holes in papers, card stock and fabrics, etc, and has three open center drills inside the handle, with the middle sized one making a 3mm hole, to accommodate a bearing.

I just miked the copper tape I have on hand, and without the backing, it looks like, .02 of an inch, so maybe, one full wrap plus would be needed.

Let me know if you want to go this route, and I'll shoot you a couple of feet so you can give it a go.

Also, there may be thicker copper or other metals that may meet your needs better.

Cheers.