Hi

I play classical guitar and use an M3. In order to protect the wooden top of my guitar from bright marks and dings near the bottom of the sound hole I have used a transparent plastic adhesive that you can shape and stick near the small area which will receive the most wear (about 1 mm thick). This is a common product that can be bought for all acoustic guitars.

I was wondering if using this clear plastic could be shaped and used to protect the base plate and the top of my M3. (I have read about people using black tape etc.) Also, would their be any problem of the adhesive damaging the chrome over time. I know this sounds terribly obsessive but this camera has sentimental value for me and I want to take care of it while I still use it.

Thanks

Erik

-- Erik Loponen (eloponen@hotmail.com), December 03, 2001

Answers

Why not buy another M for shooting film and keep the M3 for sentimental value?

-- Bert Keuken (bkkn@wanadoo.nl), December 03, 2001.

Erik: "I play classical guitar and use an M3".

Wow, I wish I could do that. Which one do you use your hands for, and which your feet?

Ok, seriously....I think the plastic material sounds like a great idea. Most probably any residual goo could be cleaned off with a solvent without pitting the finish but this would be a problem with the top-plate as you wouldn't want to get any of it into the works.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), December 03, 2001.

I think transparent plastic sheets or tape would work just fine (& I doubt the adhesive would really harm the chrome). My personal solution is to put a strip of Polaroid iZone photo stickers depicting loved ones on the bottoms of my M2 & M3 (I don't bother w/the top plate).

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@cris.com), December 03, 2001.

Hallo Erik,

sounds a bit as if you just invented a preservative for your LEICA. If someone could tell this to Oskar Barnack he would turn around in his grave with anger ...

But serious again: there are pvc-strips for the baseplate available, I got some from Solms free of charge.

For the top it woulnd´t work so neat and you risk perhaps, that your camera slips out of your hand with all the material mix on the surfaces. Use it, some marks don´t harm. You are not getting younger either.

Best wishes

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), December 03, 2001.

When I'm at a party nothing frigthens the babes more when I simutaneously play guitar and take photos at the same time. So I've stopped doing it.

-- Erik (eloponen@hotmail.com), December 03, 2001.

>would their be any problem of the adhesive damaging the chrome over time.

If you use quality tape (like 3M stuff), the adhesive wouldn't affect the chrome but the camera will look awful because the tape will wear off in bits over time and the exposed chrome gets worn. The adhesive from DYMO (or similar) name labels are more damaging. That stuff leaves an imprint even after cleaning with solvents (I taped and labeled my cameras just over 20 years ago).

-- Fred Sun (redsky3@yahoo.com), December 03, 2001.

I like the traces of usage on my M, won´t sell it anyway. J.

-- Jürgen Schliehe (juergen.schliehe@t-online.de), December 04, 2001.

As an aside, I used transparent adhesive tape on my SL to protect the chrome from the strap rubbing on it. It was on there for about 4 years. When I removed the tape the chrome seems to be stained and alcohol and hard rubbing does not remove it. I don't really care, but I think this does urge caution. Let's face it if you use these cameras they will get used and even bashed, we have to just get over it.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 04, 2001.