cleaning scopes

[Symbolic]

I have two scopes from the 60s. When I look through them, it is a hazy picture. I have wiped them with a lens cloth but to no avail. How do I clean scope lenses? Should I take the scope apart? Use windex on the outside glass?

[mikegideon]

Most scopes are nitrogen filled. Never take them apart. Get a LensPen...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ES61EE/ref=asc_df_B003ES61EE2014869?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=B003ES61EE&hvpos=1o2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5131661342072639103&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=

[gregintenn]

Most scopes are nitrogen filled. Never take them apart. Get a LensPen...

http://www.amazon.co...=&hvptwo==

Mine says "Leupold" instead of "Amazon, but I use the same tool. I'd only use water if a liquid was needed. NEVER take a scope apart!!!!!!

What kind of scopes are they? It may just be the scopes.

Edited May 14, 2012 by gregintenn

[Symbolic]

Thanks for the suggestion but it doesn't look any different than wiping them with a lens cloth. Is there a cleaning chemical on that lenspen?

The scopes are both Glenfield 4x15. They belonged to my father and grandfather back in the day hunting soda cans.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

On a good-quality glass lens with good-quality coatings, you can use 91 percent isopropyl alcohol and/or acetone (some fingernail polish removers, but check contents on the bottle to make sure it doesn't contain lanolin or anything much except acetone). On a good quality lens or coatings those chemicals will do no damage. The acetone can hurt plastics, so if the lenses might have plastic cells or spacers it isn't a good idea. Some grime is best cleaned with isopropyl or acetone, but other gunk is better cleaned with some kind of water solution possibly with a slight amount of some kind of wetter like a few drops of detergent. On many optics at least the older ones Original Windex with ammonia won't hurt anything.

If you don't disassemble down to the component lenses (not usually a good idea) be careful not to put more than slight wetting of cleaning fluid on the lenses. If you soak em too much the fluid can leak down inside the lens cell and fog up and take a long time to evaporate out. Original brand Q tips are good as are pure cotton balls. Go to wally world optical dept and get a couple of brands of microfiber lens cleaning cloths. You don't want to use the cloth until you know fer dang sure that you have removed any and all grit that you might scratch into the coatings. If you take a lens cloth or lens pen to a gritty lens, you will regret it. Some folks ferinstance can clean spotless eyepieces with nothing but Q tips/cotton balls and fluid, but for some reason I can't get every little bit of grease off, and after I know there ain't no grit (use magnifier or loupe to make sure) I can polish off the last of the grease with a microfiber lens cloth. Wally world sells one kind that is "shiny smooth" and another kind that looks like a fuzzy washcloth, and both of em work great.

Get the lens slightly wet then mop it up very gently with lots of pure soft cotton balls or Q tips. Don't be afraid of wasting cotton balls or Q tips. Once you gently wipe off a layer, toss that cotton ball or Q tip and get another clean one, to avoid picking up grit in the cotton ball then grinding the grit into the coatings.

Some lenses will get cloudy with age from micro-organism growth. Fungus or whatever grows into the glass and/or into the balsam gunk that glues two lenses into a compound pair. If it looked like problems with the balsam or fungus, unless the scope is cheap enough that I wouldn't mind ruining it as an experiment, I'd hire that out to see if a pro can take it apart and possibly separate the lenses and re-glue them and such. Maybe in that case take it to a camera shop that specializes in "high end" cameras and maybe they have a repairman who knows how to make it better without tearing it up.

[mikegideon]

Mine says "Leupold" instead of "Amazon, but I use the same tool. I'd only use water if a liquid was needed. NEVER take a scope apart!!!!!!

What kind of scopes are they? It may just be the scopes.

Yeah. I have them with 3 different brands, including Leupold. A lot of different companies private label them.

[Symbolic]

I tried the alcohol and Qtip approach and it removed some dirt I couldn't even see before, but the glass is still a bit hazy. I guess it's just old glass or maybe something leaked inside the scope over time. Both scopes will do their job. I was just hoping for a clearer sight picture looking through them.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Old glass can get hazy various reasons and dunno all of them. Fungus. Coatings breaking down. The balsam getting old. Or maybe some kinda grunge inside the scope managed to gas out on the interior surfaces over time.

On an old scope which is not a valuable antique maybe it isn't risky trying to disassemble and fix, or at least investigate. The biggest problem opening a scope is dust. Turn off the lights in your house at night and turn on a strong flashlight. Probably gross you out how much dust you see floating in the "clean" air. It is hard to disassemble then clean and reassemble and have a scope that doesn't contain lots of new dust, without some kind of clean room or dust-free clean box to work in.

Perhaps not super-relevant to a shooting scope, but if you disassemble, mark the orientation of EVERYTHING. Sharpie marks on anything fine tip works good. Mark the orientation of the fit of the eyepiece and objective cells to the scope tube. If you remove lenses from the cell, mark (on the edges of the lenses for instance) the order of lenses, which face of each lens points forward, whatever spacers may be between the lenses, and their rotational orientation relative to the cell. Some spacers will be just thin tiny tabs of metal, plastic or paper wedged between lenses maybe three places around the edge, intended to hold a couple of lenses fractions of a millimeter apart to please the optic gods. So keep an eye out for little obscure details like that.

There is no telling if the assemblers of your scope took extra adjustment steps, but often when assembling a scope the opticians will fine-adjust and rotate each lens to give the least amount of optical abberations, so if they don't go back together with the same rotation it might not have quite as good an image as originally assembled.

If trying to get a stack of lenses out of a cell, sometimes rather than poking at them with a plastic probe or whatever, you can TRY removing the retainer rings and carefully dump them in an intact stack, like a stack of coins. If that happens to work, it is easier than prying them out sideways. Again, if it happens to work, that is also the best way to get a stack back in the lens cell.

You can do something about fungus, interior dirt or even degraded balsam. You can also fix bad coatings but that would probably cost too much to hire out. PERHAPS a degraded coating could be chemically removed and give a better image with the uncoated optics. In that case you would have more reflections without the coating but a clearer view. Coatings are usually pretty durable, and are there to improve light transmission and reduce "ghost images" from reflections between lens surfaces.

Here are a few random links discussing such topics--

http://www.chem.hels...s/photo/fungus/

http://www.diy-forum...es-t246800.html

http://www.cloudynig...5/o/all/fpart/1

Edited May 15, 2012 by Lester Weevils