So I opened the FA135 up last night. On the outside it looked like Pentax service had never even gone inside. On the inside - sure they had been there.
I bought the lens new from the local dealer around 2002, it was the last one in stock here but it was still new and from the dealer. Somebody had tried to force the back element open with the wrong instrument, markings on the barrel would suggest they failed. Also the moth stuff inside. Removed the aperture thingies only to find one of the biggest screws in there was badly damaged by somebody with background in changing wheels, not servicing fine instruments. Jackass, Philips power drivers should never ever be used on JIS screws. Aperture spring being glued in place and not swapped out for a new one is a minor nitpick in comparison. Didn't want to take it apart completely - helicoids and all - so I tried to unscrew the rear element with a properly softened large area of contact tool (just dumb oversized pliers with rubber pads) and it worked. So I removed the empty pupal case (no sight of moth itself) and all the debris. Here's a picture for those of you who got this far: http://foto.ri-ki.lv/details.php?image_id=104 Properly cleaning the lens would require total disassembly and even then I don't know if it would be any good. Those monsters weave their cocoons and strands of that weave are between elements even further inside the lens. Even if I could open it up that far I don't know if I could completely remove everything. So that's it probably for this lens. I will test it against my other sample but there is no real reason for me to use it anyway when I have the other one. I don't see a good way to clean it so well that there is no sign of the moth ever being there so it can't be sold either. I might go through the adventure of disassembling it completely, cleaning it and putting it all together but I don't see that happening before the kids grow up :) Pentax should probably know about the sad state of service in Europe but I don't see a way to get this information to anybody who cares. If service at Pentax authorized service centers takes half a year and is performed by idiots who only make things worse, somebody should care, no? Oh well, I feel better already. kris -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
