Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/06

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Subject: Re: [Leica] STOP WORRYING ABOUT YOUR LEICAS
From: TTAbrahams@aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:51:11 EST

 The Leica M is a remarkably solid camera. I have dropped them, stepped on 
them, hit doors (car doors are the main culprit), punched out the windshield 
of a Ford with a Noctilux/M6 combo (fixed the sticky sliding hood on the 
Noctilux, it worked much better after that). There is no rhyme and reason 
when the rangefinder goes out. A small fall from a table on to a carpeted 
floor can knock the rangefinder out, while a drop down a flight of stairs 
might rearrange the controls on the camera, but leave the rangefinder intact! 
Any knock on the short end of the housing is most likely to knock the 
rangefinder out, while direct hits on the top-plate or baseplate leaves it 
unaffected. A friend of mine slammed the door on his car over his M4-2. The 
Rapidwinder had a nasty dent in it and the top-plate had a creative crease 
across the top. Rangefinder remained perfect and the rewind crank could be 
bent back with a pair of pliers. The cardoor was bent sufficiently to create 
a whistling sound when driven! If you baby your M's, you loose too many 
shots! My biggest problem is not rangefinders being whacked out of alignment, 
it is the rewind cranks on M4's and later cameras (until the Millenium M6) 
being bent or jammed. Maybe there is a market for a high strength rewind 
crank for the M6 or even the extended, knurled one that's on the NASA M4's.
Tom A

Replies: Reply from Alastair Firkin <firkin@netconnect.com.au> (Re: [Leica] STOP WORRYING ABOUT YOUR LEICAS)
Reply from Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com> (Re: [Leica] STOP WORRYING ABOUT YOUR LEICAS)