Who can clean the oil off of aperture blades in the CA Bay Area?

[fiducio]

I've got a Pen F Zuiko 38mm f/1.8 lens that has oily blades, besides that it's a gorgeous lens. I was wondering if anyone here knows of a reputable repairman or could repair the aperture. I haven't gotten a reply from Camtech at all, so I want to do this locally.

[Roger Thoms]

I have used ICT Camera in Mountain View for large format shutter repair with excellent results. http://www.ictcamera.com/ I'd give them a call.

Roger

[Andrew K]

if you were in Australia I could recomment a couple of people - or I could do it for oyu - I've doen a few in the past and they are not that hard to do..

Try Ken Ruth - Photography on Bald Mountain - from what I've been told he's an old school technician who takes care in what he fixes..

[John Hermanson]

Email is ALWAYS the best way to contact me. I answer within 24 hours, sometime the same day. Phone, not so good. Sorry, I was closed first for vacation, then for illness. The real fix is to totally clean out all the old focus grease (which is separating, causing the oily blades) and replace it with a high temp synthetic lube, which is what I do. THEN dis-assemble the blade mechanism, degrease everything and rebuild. Olympus service since 1977. www.zuiko.com, John

[Ian C]

This is my experience too. Once the oil begins separating from the thickener, it will continue to weep oil until it’s gone. Some unscrupulous shops only clean the diaphragm, leaving the old, deteriorated grease in place.

I think that this is likely due to overheating of the lens at some point. Possibly it was left in a hot automobile in the summer.

It might take a year or longer, but eventually more oil weeps out and once again fouls the blades.

Only by removing the old grease and replacing it with fresh grease of the correct type can ODS be stopped.