Lee 100mm filter holder - the brass clip came apart, the spring is lost!

[NancyP]

Help! That brass tab and stem (clips the holder onto the adapter ring) came apart in my bag, and the compression spring must have been lost when I was taking stuff in and out of the bag. Does anyone know the spring size or where to find a replacement? I have a query in at my dealer, 2filter. I can't be the only one who has lost a part - Lee FAQ says, consult your local dealer. Totally aggravating    !

[Paul2660]

2filter should be able to resolve it, they are great to work with.

As to the design, I agree it's a bad one.  I have asked Lee 2x to allow a similar design as the SW-150 uses, i.e. screw down instead of spring clip.  You can easily push the entire rig off from the wide angle ring. 

As a safety, I carry large rubber bands, that will fit around the entire mount and keep the latch all the way down, with pressure.  Not pretty, but much safer.  Once you drop a wide angle hood, with 105mm CL-PL on the front and a ND 1.2 into a river, you figure it's time to fix this.

Hope they get you taken care of.

Paul

[NancyP]

Good ideas, all. The short term solution, once I get another spring, is to put user-breakable blue Loc-tite (242) on the plunger-to-flange threads. That way it won't get jarred loose in the bag from vibrations during long drives to photo sites.

Of course, the even shorter term solution is to hold the filter in front of my lens, wiggling filter up and down, and hope it is in the right place....PITA with some failure rate.

[NancyP]

I will give that a try. Thanks very much, everyone. Even my Old-Fashioned Hardware Store that stocks "everything", including old outmoded stuff for the restorers around town, was stumped over the spring.

[Paulo Bizarro]

When not in use and stored in the backpack, I keep the filter holder inside the original Lee storage pack where it was shipped in. It is one more thing to remove, but at least it is more protected.

[Conner999]

Re: spring. I didn't take my holder apart to check, but appears one from a pen might work. That or replace whole assembly:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/149383-REG/LEE_Filters_SCH_Spring_Clip_Housing_for.html

[NancyP]

That I thought of almost instantly, but didn't have that kind of pen in the field. I went home and disassembled a variety of pens, and didn't find a spring that fit - they are all slightly too wide in diameter to fit in the slot.