Hello I just acquired an M3 and I am wondering if I need to treat the vulcanite with anything to prevent it from becoming brittle and cracked? Right now it appears to be in great shape. Any suggestions? TIA. Richard Fulco Minneapolis

-- RICHARD FULCO (CALCINC@MN.RR.COM), October 23, 2001

Answers

Check out Steve Gandy's site at Cameraquest.com. He has several suggestions which I recall are Neatsfoot oil or Lexol.

-- Bob Haight (rhaigh5748@aol.com), October 23, 2001.

I used some Mcquires Medallion leather care (made for car leather seats)and it seemed to do well on a few of the cameras I have used it on. Doesn't leave a greasy or slippery finish, and darkened up the coverings on a few of my old cameras that were looking faded and dry.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), October 23, 2001.

(I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here...)

See also the detailed entry I have in the FAQ>/A>

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), October 23, 2001.

Vulcanite is a rubber product, not leather, and can be damaged by petroleum-based products much as automobile rubber hoses are deteriorated by oil and gasoline. Leather treatments that "contain petroleum distillates" should not be applied to Vulcanite. Unfortunately, the drying-out, becoming brittle, and shrinkage/cracking of Vulcanite is a consequence of natural breakdown with age and can perhaps be delayed but not prevented. Like most rubber products such as tires, exposure to heat and UV accelerate the deterioration. I would hazard a guess (and this *only* a guess) that preparations for automotive trim or tires, especially those with UV- blockers, but which do not contain petroleum distillates, would be the treatments of choice.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), October 23, 2001.

Dear Nemeth, Can't thank you enough for your epoxy resin, carbon pellets tip. Worked wonders on my M3 which had pieces of vulcanite fall off. Have been following your indications since and used some sewing machine oil to keep the vulacanite in shape. Thank you again.

-- Hemant Gurung (hgurung@libertysurf.fr), October 23, 2001.

Don't use petrol based products on rubber

Correct, Jay. BTW, I am a qualified industrial chemist who did his honours thesis on cis 1-4 polybutadiene (that's artificial rubber used in truck tires!).

Most leather care products are free of petroleum solvents. Indeed, some of the better ones use all-natural compounds like bees wax or whatever magic grease they put in Dubbin. The trick is to add small amounts of plasticisers to the rubber to help slow down the brittleness all rubber sooner or later suffers from. One of the reasons why vulcanite was dropped I guess.

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), October 25, 2001.

Some years ago I did recover one of my M3 with a genuine African lizard skin with large grains in black. The work isn’t so simple as I suggested before, it took every evening for a week, but it is worth that. It’s looking great, and no signs of wear.

-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), October 26, 2001.

The way old Vulcanite falls off is getting to be a serious problem. John Van Stelton just did a beautiful job of filling in the missing spots on my M2. I used it a few days, and another section fell off the camera. And suddenly most of the Vulcanite around the base of my 90mm Elmarit has disappeared. It's most disturbing.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), October 26, 2001.