Ensign Special Reflex How to restore a Serious
damaged camera. This Ensign camera did not
survive a house-party somewhere in Canada. After this disaster the owner was
looking for someone to repair the wrack and came to my site. He sent me some
photos and was more or less convinced that his question in fact was superfluous.
The whole camera house was completely crooked.
It was just a bunch of wood and leatherette almost pressed together. This
happened some twelve years ago and at that time I did not had the experience I
do have now. My answer was that I wasn't able to refurbish the camera and wished
him good luck. Some weeks later the postman delivered a package from Canada and
surprisingly it contained the crooked camera. The sender wished me a lot of fun
with the remnants and suggested to use them for repair or what else. I dropped
the camera or what was left of it is a shoebox and forgot about it. Now some
month ago I found the shoe box and put it on the shelf so that it should not
escape my intension again. Now I wondered how to start this project and how to
tackle the damage of the wooden camera house. As I said before I do have a lot
more experience now. I learned a lot in the past ten years and each bad looking
camera nowadays is a challenge for me to repair. However this is definitely the
worst I ever have seen before. My only hope was that almost every part of the
camera was in the box. As far as I could see that seemed the fact except the
wooden part of the back above the film frame. To find out if the camera's
most essential part - the focal plane shutter- could be restored, I connected
both sides of the camera together using a wooden lath from a cigar box and
started to reinstall the focal plane shutter or what was left of it. This is
only possible if the camera has been straitened in its original shape. The focal
plane shutter should be able to move freely inside the housing straight in front
of the film-frame on the backside. Working on this I found a metal frame inside
the housing serving as a mirror house for the reflex mirror and its second
function was obvious a sort of light baffle. The Ensign Special Reflex Camera housing after
disassembling the mirror case and the two blinds and three rollers. On the left the wooden housing lacking the
wooden top connection. On the right the mirror case. The wooden lath is a temporary solution to hold
the camera together. Only then it is possible to remount the rollers and the
focal plane shutter mechanism. This set up is necessary to find out if the focal
plane shutter works as it should. If this would work out positive then we have
to find a way to repair the wooden camera house. First thing first. The photo above shows three rollers, the
friction plate and two blinds. The left roller A is the winding roller attached
is blind #1. In de middle you can see the friction plate and the second from
right is the middle roller B with the blind #2 attached. The right roller is the
lower roller C with attached both straps. Both right rollers are tensioned
spring loaded. The three drawings below show the working of
this type of shutter. The lower blind is connected by friction to the straps of
the upper blind one. These straps on their turn are connected to the roller C.
The slit width is created by winding the upper roller further once the lower
blind has reached its end. The straps pull blind 1through the friction plate on
roller A thus creating the slit between blind 1 and blind 2. When releasing the
shutter, the lower blind 2 is pulled down by the tension of roller C, followed
by the slit and then the upper blind follows the slit and closes the film frame
again. The exposure has been finished. Blind 1 and 2 are connected again by the
friction plate and the focal plane shutter is ready for the next session. The focal plane shutter winding assembly after
exposure. A= Winding wheel. B is intermediate level. C is release level
coupled to the release knob and D is release pawl holding winding wheel. f stops the exposure time when Instant mode is
selected. e stops the exposure when Time is selected.