Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/01/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dan, I do not agree with you at all. Resistance to cracking and plasticity are not synonymous at all. Brass may not be a harder material than certain zinc alloys, but it can be more plastic. This means that it will have a tendency to deform rather than fracture. I do not know the composition of the regular M6 top plate. However, I am sure that it, also, is quite durable and probably stiffer than the "titanium" version. Depends what you want from your camera body. Do you want it to support more static weight and be harder or do you want it to deform when dropped, bumped, etc. Somehow, I doubt that either body is not fit for its intended envelope of service. Incidentally, the chrome finish is probably very compatible with the brass top plate. I don't know why Leica would have two different processes, unless they are not very different after all. Best of Light, Chris At 06:28 PM 1/1/97 -0500, you wrote: >Why is it important that the metal under the titanium plating is brass as >opposed to zinc? Is there something special about brass? Is it some kind >of super metal that originates from Superman's home world? Is it not a >fairly common, cheap, not particulary hard metal? If the Titanium M6 IS >made of titanium plated brass, it is probably because of the purely >metallurgical problem of not being able to plate titanium over zinc easily. >The same is true for the chrome versions of the lenses. Brass must be the >underlying metal for the plating process to work. The end result is a >camera (or lens) that is heavier than it has to be, but probably no more >resistant to wrecking itself after falling onto a paved roadway. > >The Titanium M6 costs that much more than the regular M6 because the folks >at Leica know that they can sell it at that higher price. > >Dan C. > > > - ---------------------------------------------- C.M. Fortunko Group Leader, Materials Evaluation (853) National Institute of Standards and Technology Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory 325 Broadway Boulder, CO 80303 tel. (303)497-3062 FAX (303)497-5030 e-mail: fortunko@boulder.nist.gov - -----------------------------------------------