Ross Ensign Ful Vue Super

[John Farrell]

Today, a friend gave me one of these cameras. She bought it on a ship, while she was travelling from New Zealand to Britain, 50 years ago.

The Ful Vue Super is a box camera, with 2 shutter speeds - I and B - and a focussing lens. It has a TLR style viewfinder, with a cover. It takes 620 film.



It looked good, but the shutter didn't work, and the lens was jammed.
The first step to getting inside, is to remove the name plate, which is glued on. A sharp, thin knife blade slipped between the camera body and the plate will remove it.



The body is made of 2 castings, held together by screws which are threaded into 3 spacers, the film carrier pivots on one of these spacers.





To open the body, run the lens out to the 2 Meter mark, and undo the screws on the left side of the body. Leave the screws on the shutter release side.
The body halves will slide apart, dropping out the lens, a curved copper spacer which supports the lens, the front viewfinder lens with its circlip, and the film rollers. The viewfinder and shutter can then be slid out of the left side of the body.

Shutter



Viewfinder



The viewfinder mirror is a piece of polished chromed brass.

Front viewfinder lens, with circlip



The shutter on my camera just required a flick to free a jammed blade. The lens was jammed because the lug, which runs in the spiral groove cast into the left side of the body, was bent. The curved copper spacer fits on the right side of the lens.

.

I straightened the lug, cleaned off the old grease, and put on a small amount of new grease. I cleaned the various lenses and the mirror, and the camera was ready for assembly.

The viewfinder and shutter and front viewfinder lens go back in the left side of the body. Sit the lens with the lug engaged in the spiral groove, and put the curved spacer on the exposed side of the lens barrel. Leave the circlip for now.



Slide the right side of the body, with the spacers attached, onto the left side. Make sure you have the film carrier in the right place.



When you have the body halves almost together, fit the film rollers.

Fit the screws on the left side of the body, and when the camera is assembled, replace the circlip in front of the viewfinder lens.
Finally, reglue the name plate.

[PeterW]

Hi John,

Nice example. The Full-Vue range was one of the most popular cameras with the general public during the post-war years in England. After a long period of being forgotten it is now quite collectable.

As you may know, the Super was the only one of the range to have a diecast alloy body, and the best engineered. An excellent example of good production engineering. It was also the only one to use 620 film, all the others were 120.

The full story of Ensign is told in Ensign enthusiast Adrian Richmond's excellent website www.ensign.demon.co.uk/index.htm and is quite a sad one in its way, an example of post-war head-in-the-sand mis-management that killed off a lot of British industry in those years.

The page www.ensign.demon.co.uk/ful-vue.htm covers the Ful-Vue range in detail.

PeterW

[Randy]

Very nice John. I have a Spartus Ful Vue that I rebuilt.

[John Parry]

Well done John

I thought it was a 120, like the others in the series, but I stand corrected!

Regards - John

[bobm]

I've got one of these stashed away - it used to belong to my parents and most of the family album was shot with it.