[Leica] mirror cleaning

["Rod Fleming" <rodfleming@sol.co.uk>]

Hi

Art wrote

>One of the ones I plan to sell is a Hasselblad that is
in rather nice condition except for some spotting on
the mirror. What's the best thing to use to clean the
mirror?
A q-tip maybe and ?????
>




Art, the mirror in your bathroom has the silvering behind the glass. The
mirror in your Hassie - and for that matter any modern reflex that I know
of- has it ON TOP of the glass. This is to prevent refraction in the glass
degrading the ground-glass image. The reflective coating is very soft and
easily damaged. If the dirt is more than can be removed using a gentle blow
from a puffer together with picking up dust with a sable brush, take it to a
pro repairer, or if you're confident, try this:

Go buy a new chamois leather. You want the most stupidly expensive one you
can find. It should feel thick and really soft to the touch. I used to get
them from a shop that catered for people who were into seriously trick paint
on their custom cars. The shop closed some years ago, so now I just have to
get what I can. But if you know of a shop like that, go there and get the
Rolls-Royce of chamois. It'll be about 3 feet square, so you'll get several
decent lens cleaning leathers out of each one, which should ease the pain a
bit. Good chamois is expensive.

Take the leather home and beat it up, giving it a proper work out, snapping
it, shaking it, rolling it up between your palms like dough. Naturally you
want to avoid  getting any extraneous dirt on it, so no kicking it round the
yard. Then give it a really good hoovering (really) to remove loose bits.
The chamois is now ready to be cut to size and used.

Wrap a corner round your finger- beware, most chamois leathers have a soft
and a hard side. You want soft side out. After removing as much loose dust
as you can as above, gently- really gently, pass the finger wrapped in
chamois over the mirror. This is NOT RUBBING! (and I ain't responsible if
you do cause damage!) Use no pressure at all- merely make the chamois
contact the surface evenly. You should feel it "drag" on the surface. I
think it's all right to breathe on the mirror surface first- but be aware
that many disapprove of this.

Very slow and very gentle. If there are greasy residues or (Argh)
fingermarks which won't move- proceed to repairer as above.

I would never trust Q-tips; far too abrasive. In fact, notwithstanding from
Ted's old underwear, which I don't have access to, I personally wouldn't
touch any optical surface with anything other than a top quality chamois
leather treated as above. I keep the older ones- I change them regularly-
for cleaning the camera bodywork, or for wrapping up fragile parts, and only
then for cleaning the bodywork of my car(s).

This applies also to older Leica glass, BTW, which is notoriously soft.

Careful now,


Rod