Where to have binos fixed (United States)? (1 Viewer)

[swamp_rattler]

Hello all,

I recently broke my pair of binoculars while out birding. I was multi-tasking and I lifted my camera/telephoto lens up with one arm and hit them against my bins. As you can see by the attached photo, the eyepiece thingamabobber fell off.

Years ago I had a local shop fix a pair of bins, but they were optically very much off. I'd rather pay more and have it done right! As well, since these bins are OLD, I wouldn't mind a cleaning, too.

Where in the U.S. would you recommend such services? The binos are the Swift Kestrel 826 10x50.

Thanks!
-Jared
Ohio

 

[fstop]

I can recommend Nicolas Christa without reservation. He's a factory trained Swift tech, he overhauled my MKII 8.5x44 and did a fine job at a reasonable time and cost. I doubt you will find better.
Mr.Nicholas Christa
25 Crescent Place
Hanson, MA 02341
https://nrcoptics.wordpress.com/

 

[elkcub]

That's a late model Kestrel and worth repairing. Nick Crista has repaired many of my Swift binoculars, including a Kestrel like yours. He is likely to have spare parts too.

Ed

 

[cycleguy]

I would give this company a call. They are listed with Swift as their current warranty repair source. You can pull this off their website...

"Land Sea and Sky completes our binocular, monocular, and spotting scope repair and warranty work. If you have any questions regarding your Swift products in these categories, please contact Land Sea and Sky at 713.529.3551 or go to Landseaskyco.com."

I tend to replace broken with new... just never seems to be as good as I remember it to be.

My .02,

CG

 

[SivaL]

For Swift bins I'd also recommend Land Sea and Sky in Houston. Call them and ask for Darrin. He knows his binoculars and has let me take the SV, SF and UV outside to do comparisons whenever I visited the store. I bought my first Swift Ultralite Porro used from him and they had done a nice job cleaning and collimating before putting the bins on sale.

 

[Roadbike]

Suddarth Optical Repair has a fine reputation.
http://http://www.suddarthoptical.com/

 

[WJC]

Suddarth Optical Repair has a fine reputation.
http://http://www.suddarthoptical.com/

In the early ‘90s a fellow from New York took his 1936 Zeiss to Clairmont-Nichols for restoration. They told him to send it to Meichner in Boston. They told him to check with Frank Janicek at Maryland Precision who said Zeiss would be the only company who could do the work—the objective lenses were swaged in and, when removed, had to be de-cemented. After much running around, Zeiss, in Virginia, told him they wouldn’t do the work and that he should send it to Cory and me at Captain’s in Seattle.

One of the photos below shows every part removed for restoration. The other is what we returned to him, with lenses coated and collimated to MIL-SPEC.

There’s a difference between 20 year’s experience and one year of experience 20 time.

Cory is top drawer, and, these days, I just write about it and wax nostalgic.

Bill

 

[Alexis Powell]

Excellent service from Suddarth Optical Repair (SOR)

My dad's heavily used Celestron 9x63 Ultima recently went out of alignment after many years of use/abuse. I sent them in embarrassingly dirty state to Cory at SOR where they were aligned, cleaned, and the grease in the right eye diopter threads was replaced, all for $80 shipping included. Very happy. Get good old porros fixed! (and cats too !

--AP