ZF4 Telescope

It depends. The erector lens set, a concave and convex pair of lenses glued together in the eyepiece, is usually the culprit, the glue becoming opaque. The scopes can certainly be taken apart and lenses cleaned. Getting the glued bits apart is not for the faint of heart and can result in a broken lens and useless scope.
 
In the early times the lenses where put together with "Kanadabalsam", there is no problem to seperate the lenses and fix them after cleaning or/and polishing with this. But- you have to know how, and even you need special tools to disassemble the scope.
Absolutely not recommended for a layperson without experience.
 
Can the lense be separated from the assembly it sits in? I see there is 2 set screws and a keyway used to unscrew the collar that holds the ocular assembly in place. How hard is it to get the ocular lense free of the assembly?
 

German ZF 4 Scope refinish

Not my normal cup of tea but, been looking for one for sometime to build up a K98 Sniper, a real one would be nice but price and finding something original are few and far between.... The reason for the ZF4 was that I had read about the K98 with the swept back mount and thought it would be a...
www.milsurps.com
This is as close as I could find
 
biggymu said:
It depends. The erector lens set, a concave and convex pair of lenses glued together in the eyepiece, is usually the culprit, the glue becoming opaque. The scopes can certainly be taken apart and lenses cleaned. Getting the glued bits apart is not for the faint of heart and can result in a broken lens and useless scope.
Click to expand...
biggymu,
Have you had one of these scopes apart?
How is the lense itself held in the sub assembly?
 
Madhatter_86 said:
Best handled by a specialist
Click to expand...

This. Know a guy is S. Cal. whom does the work. Trouble is these scopes were never made to nor intended to last 70+ years (includes the larger SSG optics as well). Some items are made of pot metal/zinc and are easy to destroy if you don't know what your doing. There is more to it than just pulling the lenses and wiping them off...
 
The tiny lenses are crimped into the end of that tube. My scope was almost useless as it was, so I decided to try to improve it and learn more about scopes even if I broke it. I believe I ground the end of the tube carefully until the entire circumference of the glass was exposed. Then I pushed the pair out from the ocular end with a dowel. I broke the tiny concave lens doing this.
All was not lost however, I had a broken 91/30 Russian scope. I pulled the erector lens set out of the Russian scope, ground the tube off on the ZF4 and JB welded the 91/30 lens set where the original German set once sat. Once installed, the scope was crystal clear, rock solid, in focus and easily zeroed to point of aim. I consider it both a learning experience and a win as the scope was usable.
This was 20 years ago and the value of these scopes was not as great. But if you don’t break stuff once in a while, your aren’t doing anything
I have since replaced crosshairs with tungsten wire .0005 dia. in a Mannlicher Schoenauer scope using a digital microscope. This wire is so fine, even in good light I had to catch the end of it with a spring clip just to see it. I’m not a scope expert by any stretch, but I have been a successful mechanic, construction and service foreman for 45 years. What one man may invent, another may repair.
 

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