Taylor Hobson Lens lubing

[Raymond Zananiri]

I have a 25mm Taylor Hobson lens that has a rather stiff focus ring, smooth but heavy to rotate. Does anyone have any experience on lubing the lens Helicoid? It has two screws. One on the side and one near the mount. 

If you think it's too difficult to do, who do you recommend in the US (west coast preferable) to do that? Thanks for the help. 

https://www.dropbox.com/t/bznnJcA01VgJMjad

[Simon Wyss]

These elder Cooke lenses have more than two threaded tubes in them, I know the system. You may want to call https://cinevisuals.com/cine-lens-service-repair/.

[Tim Carroll]

Not sure what camera your Taylor Hobson Cooke lens is for, but if it's the common Arriflex S mount, then you lubricate the lens barrel before you fit it into the lens socket. Those lenses are "externally lubed". And we always used to use Vasoline if no Arri grease was available. But make sure to always lube the outside barrel of a Cooke Kinetal lens before inserting it into one of the lens sockets on an Arri camera.

Best,

-Tim

[Dom Jaeger]

Even if you grease the external mount, if the focus feels stiff the internal helical thread probably still needs re-lubrication. I wouldn’t recommend trying to disassemble a lens like this yourself. I would try Duclos or Focus Optics.

[Tim Carroll]

I agree Dom, not a lens you want to take apart to experiment on.

My comments on lubing the external barrel before inserting it into the lens mount socket on the camera comes from experiencing numerous folks putting non-lubricated Kinetal lenses into Arri 16S cameras, then complaining that the lens was rather stiff to focus. Because of the way the Arri mount Kinetals are designed, that's not an easy lens to rack focus on when the lens is not mounted in a camera body. So when folks used to say to me, the lens focuses stiffly, my first question was always, did you lubricate the outside lens barrel before inserting it into the mount socket. The answer was almost always "No", and after lubricating the lens barrel they reported that the focus now felt "fine".

Just some thoughts.

Best, -Tim