Sankyo Kohki 200mm fixed with a big hammer and a bit of hardwood!

As you know, I love old glass. Often, if a lens appears beaten up it's because it is a good one and has been heavily used. So when I saw a cheap Sankyo Kohki Komura f4.5 200mm with a bashed in filter thread (and a wonderful 18 blade preset aperture) I grabbed it. Turned out to be an awful thing so it sat in a drawer until a day or so back. It was raining so I took it to the workshop and carefully leveled it on the bench with the damaged filter ring firmly in contact with a bit of plywood. The end of a short bit of hardwood was curved on the sanding machine to match its radius. Several judicious and smart smacks later the filter ring was sufficiently 'straightened' to a proper curve that would now accept a long 55mm hood.

I put it onto the K1 and its poor performance had been transformed !




The damage is where it says 1:4.5. Even the front bezel had been dented by the original impact!






The glass is good apart from cleaning marks on the front element and that 18 blade iris ..... !



1 Did I say it had been raining?



2 It is good against the light too



3 And with strong contrasts (there is a tiniest bit of red CA against the petal edges).



4 Best I could find to get it to produce some bokeh



Not the sharpest lens in the bag but this was a good example of the difference a hood can make and I've now got a fully working classic.
These were all taken between f5.6 and f8.

And a good example of the difference a good hammer and nerves of steel can make !!! What a good way of using a rainy day.

Steve

What Lubbyman says, and then some!

Well done. When all else fails, brute force and ignorance usually works a treat... lol..