Naptha to clean planar 2.8

[ts103706@ohio.edu]

I was wondering if Naptha would be okay to clean of oils on the lens of my Rolleiflex 2.8f. The lens is an old Planar and I don't know if naptha will affect the lens coating. I intended to use a q tip to clean it with naptha and distilled water.

[panastasia]

I wouldn't, it's a solvent that disolves wax and other things. If it gets inside the lens, who knows what it will disolve? What's wrong with lens cleaning solution (soapy water)?

[votrepear]

I would second that, never use any type of solvent on optical surfaces.

[Mike Wilde]

A little goes a long way. I have had a few ancient LF lenses apart to get the slow shutter spreed escapement moving again, or to get an apurture worth of blades meshing properly (oh, and never again on that effort..)

For me it is white gas, (also known as coleman stove fuel in North America) used very sparingly. Dip a tooth pick in the solvent then runb the solvent coated end around the shaft that is gummed, etc. Excerise a few times to see if there is enough solvent to get things moving; iff not, add more bit by bit. Too much all at once can lead to very regretable incidents.

[darinwc]

If you look at the ingredients of any lens cleaning solutions, it will contain one or more solvents, most of which i would consider stronger than naptha..
They may also contain soap or water.

I use Naptha regularly to clean lenses and it works great for removing fingerprints and light oil stains. It does not work well on heavy oil stains.
Naptha evaporates very quickly, leaves no residue, and IMHO will not harm hard coated lenses.

To use it, squirt a little on a new microfiber cloth, do not squirt it directly on the lens!
Wipe the wet part of the cloth on the lens, then use a dry part to pick up any oil residue.
It may take more than one application to remove oils.
Do not re-use dirty parts of the cloth and throw it away when there are no clean spots left, do not wash and reuse it.

[ts103706@ohio.edu]

I ended up using it, and I was very impressed. I used about 5 q-tips on the taking lens alone. I spun the tips while moving them to keep from going over the lens with a dirty part of the q-tip. I went over it about 4 times and I can't see any of the grease that was originally on it. It also worked well to clean oil off of other parts.