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westfi2 · Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 2

I was cleaning the two little, round windows on the front of my Kalart rangefinder, and I pushed just a little too hard on the bottom one. It fell out of its position into the interior of the housing. Now what ? Can this thing be safely taken apart ? Thanks.

troublemaker · Joined: 24 Nov 2003 Posts: 715 Location: So Cal

The cover is easily removed and comes straight off and will not effect the calibration. There should be two screws at thetop and two at the bottom; unless there is a gaurd and then there may be three on top that need to be removed and two at the fornt inside of the camera body. Use proper sized drivers to remove screws or they will surely slip and burr.
Once you have the cover off, do not touch the half slivered mirror on top. The bottom prism can be cleaned with q-tips and windex...use sparingly.
As far as the Rangefinder port glass, I have found that a good qulaity white glue is sufficient to hold small pieces of galss in place. Use an appropiate dabber or one of your small screwdrivers to apply to the inside ofthe glass holder inthe cover and then with suitable tweezers drop the glass in and press into its seat. let dry for half hour and that should do it. Others may recomend other cements like silicone which also can work well. I wouldn't recomend any kind of epoxy as it would be realy hard to clean excess, and that's why I personally don't like to use silicone either..
After glue dries, clean glass surfaces with a few Q-tips and windex and install cover...
There's my two cents worth...
You may have a couple more suggestions if you wait a while forothers to post
Have fun

[ This Message was edited by: troublemaker on 2006-10-02 17:25 ]

[ This Message was edited by: troublemaker on 2006-10-02 17:27 ]

westfi2 · Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 2

Thanks so much - I appreciate it !

troublemaker · Joined: 24 Nov 2003 Posts: 715 Location: So Cal

Westfi,
A little more on the RF cover. SInce we are talking about the lower sight glass, it may be easier to scrape the small amount of glue or cement onto the seat of the glass piece from the outside. and you might try dropping the glass into place a couple times without glue so as to get it in clean when the glue is present. I like to use needle nose tweezers that have 45 degree ofset tips, which helps in those hardto get to places... Thus dry fit it first and make sure you can get it where you want it.