Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Frank wrote: >If the holdup is due to supplying titanium lenses I can guess the >reason. Whilst there are good techniques for machining titanium >nowadays if they only have experience machining aluminum and brass >they may have serious problems getting a reasonable surface finish on >milled parts even with the latest cutters. The titanium is only a finish. On brass or alu lens parts. So no machining of titanium required! And as far as I understand the lens parts come from the factory in Portugal. That is not where the hold up is. The limiting factor is in the painstakingly slow, one-per-very-expensive-machine, process of creating the required aspheric surfaces - one per Summilux . And each ASPH surface, after each round of milling or polishing, is checked by hand. As far as I understand the 'hot-stamping' method is no longer used, anyhow not for the Summilux parts. So once a priority order for 50 special lenses comes in, stop goes the manufacturing for the normal production. The factory in Solms is really small. Interesting, but small! Sander Amsterdam Holland