salvaging an old INON lens - how to clean the glass?

[The Mushroom King]

Hi folks,

I found an INON UWL-100 lens that had obviously been lost to Davy Jones for quite sometime. After three days of warm fresh water soaks and some diluted vinegar most of the crud and other deposits have nicely cleaned up.

However, the glass seems to have a 'film' on it. Can it be salt/mineral build up? Or, I know INON lens have a coating. Is it possible that this coating is messed up? (see picture attached)

I'm hoping some SB folks can offer some advice. Do you think this lens is salvageable, or garbage? What should I try next?

Cheers

 

[Nemrod]

I am afraid that looks like salt crystals on the interior. I doubt that can be salvaged but it is an interesting paperweight.

N

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

Does it feel physically rough? If so the surface may be etched, which will happen in salt water after a long time. I'd try to extract the lenses from the mount and rub with some cerium oxide and cotton balls. That is a pretty radical approach for a "finished" optic, but in this case there is not a lot to lose. A lot of times it is really hard to tell if features that are a couple microns thick or less are on or in a lens. So I would try cleaning it, it may work out pretty well, or not, it's hard to say.

 

[The Mushroom King]

I'm not yet sure if there is any damage inside, but the 'stuff' is most definitely on the outside. Hard to see in the picture but its like a powdery coating on the surface that is a bit rough to the touch.
For the time being I'll keep it in fresh water and vinegar baths and see what happens..... and try to think of a clever way to make it into an interesting paperweight should it not work out ;-)
any other ideas?

 

[bkotheimer]

If it doesn't recover, you could use the M67 or AD-mount back to make a lens cap for your housing port when there's no lens attached. Personally, I would love to come across a beat-up AD lens for this very reason. It floors me that Inon doesn't make a cheap plastic or rubber AD-mount lens cap, but I'm told they don't.

 

[diver 85]

Dang, that kinda looks like a corneal ulcer(see below)----I'd use a gtt of Vigamox or Zymar on that thing q2h....

&---it looks pretty shot to me...

 

[slowhands]

Hi folks,

I found an INON UWL-100 lens that had obviously been lost to Davy Jones for quite sometime. After three days of warm fresh water soaks and some diluted vinegar most of the crud and other deposits have nicely cleaned up.

However, the glass seems to have a 'film' on it. Can it be salt/mineral build up? Or, I know INON lens have a coating. Is it possible that this coating is messed up? (see picture attached)

I'm hoping some SB folks can offer some advice. Do you think this lens is salvageable, or garbage? What should I try next?

Cheers

That looks etched, and it probably not salvageable. You could try a stronger acid, phosphoric, briefly, to see if it gets the white residue off. I try to restore lenses that have been wet. Sometimes you can get all the deposit off, but it has etches the optical coating and still looks awful. I generally give up if the coating is etched. Let us know how it goes.

 

[The Mushroom King]

Just a quick update.

The lens came out pretty well after a lot of cleaning. but the surface of the lens is shot! a few tiny scratches, and the protective coating is nearly gone.
I called up INON and they told me that they could re-polish and re-coat the lens for about a hundred bucks!! Not too bad! But this is a 28AD mount and I'm about to jump into a M52/67 system so I don't think I'll send it to INON.... I'll hold on to the lens for awhile just in case however (any way to dump the 28AD mount with a thread mount??)

Thanks for your advice everyone. I can at least say it was pretty fun! not everyday you find something like this (I wish there were more wrecks around here to hunt for things!!)

Cheers
-M