Unscrewable adapter

[Richard Wasserman]

I have a 21mm Voigtlander Color-Skopar lens that I put an Leica M bayonet adapter on when I bought it. It went on very easily. I now want to remove the adapter and it is stuck fast and I can't budge it. I have tried everything that I can think of to unscrew it, with no success. My efforts have primarily consisted of holding the lens with various padded materials and twisting, with a liberal application of creative language, but nothing worked. I even asked my teenage son to help-I'm that desperate! I hope someone will have a great and easy solution to my problem before I have to get out the blow torch and pipe wrenches. Thanks everybody.

Richard Wasserman

 

[Jon Shiu]

I don't know if you would want to try it with a lens, but I loosened my tripod head from the column by putting in the freezer for a little while.

Jon

 

[richard ide]

Hi
you could try wrapping a rubber band around it. That will give you a real non slip grip.

Richard

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Unless the lens was screwed into the adapter by a gorilla, I have never had a problem here by unscrewing the lens while the adapter is either on a camera or in a rear lens cap. Attempting to grasp the adapter alone will not work, it's much too sharp and slippery!

Regards,

David

 

[roteague]

A tiny drop of 3in1 oil should do the trick.

 

[Richard Wasserman]

Thank you everyone for your excellent suggestions. The combination of penetrating oil and a rubber band did the trick, the adapter is off.

Richard Wasserman

 

[barryjyoung]

Hi Richard:

What I do when faced with this problem always works with no damage to either piece (except for occasional galling of threads which is not a problem with the method for separating the pieces).

I drill a hole in the center of a short piece of softwood lumber the same size as one of the parts and another hole the same size as the mating part in a longer piece of lumber. Then I bandsaw a slot across the hole and along the length of the lumber on each board about one inch past the hole. Clamp the short board in the vise holding the first piece. The second board can be C clamped (or bolted if you have a very stubborn part) and used as a long handled wrench. I have never found any two pieces that can not be seperated by this method. I did have one filter ring deform once, but that is the only time there was a problem in at least ten applications of this principle. Hope that helps.

I have a 21mm Voigtlander Color-Skopar lens that I put an Leica M bayonet adapter on when I bought it. It went on very easily. I now want to remove the adapter and it is stuck fast and I can't budge it. I have tried everything that I can think of to unscrew it, with no success. My efforts have primarily consisted of holding the lens with various padded materials and twisting, with a liberal application of creative language, but nothing worked. I even asked my teenage son to help-I'm that desperate! I hope someone will have a great and easy solution to my problem before I have to get out the blow torch and pipe wrenches. Thanks everybody.

Richard Wasserman

 

[Mike Kovacs]

Are you certain your adapter was 39mm with Whitworth spec threads and not standard metric threads?

The former is what Leica used, arising from their microscope tooling available back in the day. Whitworth is one of the best thread designs in existance, more expensive to make too.

 

[Richard Wasserman]

Barry,
Thanks, that's a very good suggestion. I'll file it away for the next time I have a similar problem and I'm sure I will.

Mike,
The adapter was made by Cosina who also made the lens so it was a perfect fit, just stuck.

Richard Wasserman