Found out my old brass lens polish has been eating through the nickel plating on these vintage Rolleiflexes

I was reading a 1972 repair manual from the library archives and it casually mentioned that ammonia-based polishes will strip the plating if left on for more than 90 seconds, has anyone else seen this happen with their own cleaning routine?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret_gonzalez259d ago

Jesse's lucky he didn't get chemical burns too. That stuff eats through skin oils faster than it eats through nickel. I had a buddy who used it on a Contax and the plating flaked off in sheets like old paint. Took him weeks with fine abrasives to get the surface even again.

blake6919d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, @jesse994, my buddy left that stuff on his dad's old Leica for about two minutes and the plating just bubbled right off!

jesse9949d ago

Honestly, I once almost polished a hole right through my hand doing the same thing.