[Leica] Black Paint M cameras

[rangefinder at screengang.com (Didier Ludwig)]

Feli

I had an interesting information exchange with the LHSA member Akira 
Nakajima in the past winter. He had dechromed and painted his Leica. See his 
instructions below.

I for myself have decided that dechroming is too messy and better done by a 
professional galvanizer, and assembling/CLA will be done by other 
professionals. I have disassembled a Canon VT DeLuxe with a repair manual 
found in the web and sent the parts to a local galvanizer here in 
Switzerland. Total costs were CHF50 that's $40. I'm shure it's cheaper in 
the US.

Now the parts wait to be painted, unfortunately I'm missing the time for 
that. I have bought "Flat Black" fine grain enamel paint (Part #CF3-F) and a 
red and white lacquer pen for the engravings, both from 
http://www.micro-tools.com (anyway the right place for all camera 
tinkerers). After painting (damn I hope this will happen soon) all will be 
sent unasssembled to http://www.essexcamera.com where they will assemble and 
CLA the camera for another $130 (they agreed for this procedure). 

Good luck with your M4...
Didier




Quoting Akira Nakajima:

>As for dechroming, there are two methods, electrolysis and chemical.
>
>Since I'm not planning to do a large volume work like Kanto (
>http://www.kanto-cs.co.jp/index.html ) or Shintaro, I decided to use the
>local chroming shop and do it electolysis method. The would reverse the
>electrical polarity of the exterior chrome and remove it in a hot bath
>(reverse chroming). That would leave you the second layer of nickel and that
>could also be removed in similar fashion. But I dediced to use sandpaper and
>work the nickel to the third layer the brass core. It cost me about
>CDN$35.00 to dechrome (a rip-off for just 5 miniute work) and lots of fine
>grot sand paper (min. 400 grit) and requires alot of manual labor (good
>exercise though). For another $35.00 the nickel can be removed at the
>chroming shop. I'm not sure where you can get that done in Zurich but if you
>can find an automobile body shop or jeweler who plates metals, then they can
>definately de-chrome.
>
>Another method is to do it chemically, and that introduces more nasty
>hazards (enviromental and disposal), Here in North America Muriatic Acid is
>a common cleaning agent (used to clean concrete, brick and strip chrome).
>It's very cheap about CDN$5.00 for 500ml. All you need to do is to boil
>water, pour that into a plastic bucket, then slowly add the Muriatic Acid
>(you can find lot's of information using Google). When you have about
>50%-50% mixture, then put the chrome pieces into the bucket for 30 minutes.
>Use heavy duty gloves (not latex), eye protection and resporator / mask to
>prevent the fumes of making you ill. You will have a clean nickel finish at
>this stage ( I personally like nickel finished metals ). To neutralize and
>dispose the acid mixture, you will then need to pour regular baking soda
>(the same stuff that's commonly used to get odors out of refrigerators)
>Baking soda is naturally alkaline (base) so when you mix acid and base, you
>should get salt water. You still can not just flush that down the toilet (it
>will eat through the metal pipes! I Canada there are depots where people can
>safely dispose hazerdous liquids (usually run by the local municipal
>government).
>
>Next stage, you must use a nickel removing chemical called MetalX B-929. The
>process is similar to Muriatic Acid. See this link...
>http://www.finishing.com/stripper/
>http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/metalx.html
>
>Then I'm down to the brass. Oh, but I almost forgot...You should take off
>the glass R/F and V/F windows. On an old body like M2, M3, the glass is
>sealed to the back with balsam glue. All you need to do is to soak the top
>plate in boiling water for 10 minutes and the glue well melt away.
>
>To paint the brass, I used Rustoleum spray paint (Tom A. also said this is
>good stuff to hide metal blemishes)! The Grey Hammertone is quite nice as it
>looks both factory H/T and Antracite at the same time. I will send you
>pictures of my body after having the RF serviced by Kindermann Canada.
>That's another thing, I just had my M3 serviced by Kindermann in May but
>after I put all the pieces back on the R/F was way off. I managed to correct
>the vertical alignment (not difficult) but my infinity and near focus needed
>professional adjustment. (perhaps that's why I couldn't tell if the 35mm PII
>was focusing past infinity...). Anyway I'm not sure if you can get the same
>spray paint in Switzerland but here's the link to Rustoleum. 
>http://www.rustoleum.com/Product.asp?frm_product_id=21&SBL=1&dds=15
>
>In closing, the total cost of this DIY project was $60.00 for materials
>(still waiting for Kindermann to invoice me) but suffice it to say, it's
>considerably cheaper than having Shintaro do it for US$500+.
>
>You will also need to paint the engraved areas (script, serial number,
>rewind, etc.) with white. I used a lacquer pen (looks like pastel / crayon)
>and wipe away the excess. You can get the paint pen as well as the necessary
>tools to remove the pieces from
>http://www.micro-tools.com/Merchant2/paint.htm
>
>Final note...I would strongly recommend first trying hammertone grey or
>olive, rather than the popular black. The reason is simple, less painting to
>do and in time the brassing will happen naturally.



>Following Craig Zeni's lead, I have decided to strip and paint one of  
>my M4
>cameras black.
>
>I'm doing a little research regarding the paint and was curious if  
>anyone
>here actually owns or used to own an original black paint camera.