I finally stopped fighting with helicoid grease, took me 6 hours to see it

Last month I was rebuilding a 50mm lens and the focus ring kept binding no matter how many times I cleaned and regreased it. I tried three different greases from my bench, even the fancy one I save for cine lenses, and it still felt gritty. After six hours of pulling it apart and putting it back together, I realized the helicoid threads had a tiny burr I kept missing, a little file fixed it in five minutes. Now I check every thread with a magnifier before I even touch the grease, anyone else ever burn a whole day on a simple burr like that?

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mitchell.shane3d ago

Six hours on a burr" reminded me of my buddy Dave. He spent an entire weekend fighting a sticky aperture on an old Canon, thought it was oil on the blades or something. Turns out it was a tiny bent screw on the actuator arm, he bent it back with tweezers in like two minutes. He still brings it up every time we talk about lens work.