This week I restored this World War I monocular used by the Germans and made by Carl Zeiss. It’s a pleasure to restore such a high quality piece of optics. There is a lot of dust and dirt inside so you can barely see anything through the lens. The surface needs some restoration as well. I decided to leave the eye piece assembled because it was constructed so that I would have had to damage it to disassemble and I wasn’t sure I could put it back together as well as it was. Also I didn’t see any major dirt or other reason inside to give me an excuse to risk it.
After the disassembly I cleaned the brass parts with ketchup and then polished those with wool wheels and polishing compound. Ketchup is a great way to remove patina from brass. It contains vinegar and also some enzymes which help with removing the oxidation. It also doesn’t smell and it is readily in easy to apply formula. Vinegar is also more aggressive which could leave to damage to my unoxidized brass.
The aluminum sheets or caps from the ends of the monocular body were stripped from paint and sanded down and polished as well. The one with text was sanded with 250, 400, 800, 1200 and 2000 grit sand paper. With the one with the text I started lightly from 400 to preserve the text.
I also tried paint stripper for the monocular body but the texture on it didn’t come off well. It only softened a little. I decided to scrape most of it off with a screwdriver and then remove rest with scotch bright wheel. I didn’t have to bee too careful not to scratch the body because I would cover it in leather anyways.
Other parts were cleaned with acetone.
To cover the monocular with leather I had to first sand the leather a little thinner. I tried to press it evenly on the belt sander. This was very slow process. I probably should have used rougher belt but I had never done this before. Then the leather was soaked in water to allow me to streck it to the shape of the monocular. This made it much easier to glue it on.
I mixed some silicone with a little of acetone to make it flow better and used a syringe and a needle to apply a thin line to seal the ends during the assembly. Hopefully this will reduce the collecting of dust inside the monocular so the visibility will stay as good as I got it.
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