For the mechanically competent who understand how the top is held on.
it's pretty easy to get at the prism and clean out the guck. The problem
is where the guck has eaten through the protective paint and desilvered
the prism. This looks like some nasty dark greenish-black sludge
creeping up from the bottom of the viewfinder. New prisms are not
available and resilvering is not a home project for most people. The
simplest solution is to clean the desilvered area very throughly and
carefully and put everything back together (no, no new foam). The
combination of the refractive index of the prism, the angle of the top
facets and the darkness inside the top is such that the desilvered area
is hardly noticeable. Another solution is to pick up a non-working OM-10
or G(20) and use the identical prism from it in the OM-1 or 2. These
cameras didn't have foam on the prism (neither did many later OM-1 & 2s),
Moose
Wayne Harridge wrote:
tom wagner <sally30@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
How long before old foam turns to goo is it too late..or
is their still hope in reviving the ol' gal?
How long ? I think this depends on environmental conditions, however I wouldn't
expect too many OM-1s to have good original foam. Replacement of the back
seals and mirror buffers can be done by anyone with reasonable mechanical
skills (there are instructions on the FAQ I believe). If there is rotting foam on the
pentaprism, I would recommend a professional to repair it.
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