Old glass deserves a second alignment.
Most binoculars that reach us are not broken. They are out of collimation, fogged behind a tired seal, or stiff with grease that hardened years ago. All three are bench work, not landfill.
We are a small workshop of two: one bench for porro prisms and field glasses, one for roof prisms, spotting scopes and rangefinders. Everything is done by hand, in the order it arrives, and nothing leaves until it holds alignment on the collimator overnight.
What comes through the door
- Marine and harbour glasses
- Salt-worn 7×50s from working boats. Usually a strip-down, prism reseat, new seals and a fresh nitrogen purge where the housing allows it.
- Inherited field glasses
- Pre-war porro pairs with separated cement and dried lubricant. We clean, re-cement where the coating survives, and say so plainly when it does not.
- Spotting scopes
- Focus mechanisms that have gone gritty, eyepiece threads that have been forced, objective cells knocked out of square by a fall.
- Hunting and range instruments
- Laser rangefinders and image-stabilised units: we handle the optical path and the seals, and return the electronics untouched if they are beyond a bench repair.
How the bench runs
Work is quoted after inspection, never before. An instrument is opened, measured and photographed, and the estimate is sent with a short note on what we found. If the repair is not worth the price of the instrument, we say so and return it free of charge.
Typical turnaround is two to three weeks. In late autumn, when the shooting and birding seasons end together, it stretches to five. We do not take rush work, because rushed collimation comes back.
A full list of bench operations and what each one covers is on the services page.
Finding us
The workshop sits above a chandlery on the north quay. There is no shop counter and no display window — instruments are handed over at the bench, by appointment, Tuesday to Friday. Send a note first and we will suggest a morning.
Post is accepted and preferred for anything travelling more than an hour. Pack the instrument in its own case inside a rigid box, and include a sheet of paper with your name and a one-line description of the fault.