Ross 5" Wide Angle (Air Ministry) - anyone ever taken one apart?

[alexander]

As per the title, has anyone here who's ever owned one of these disassembled it?

I'm trying to clean one up (with too much optimism) and though the rear elements are easily accessed it seems impossible to get in to the front elements... If they're simply burnished in then I guess I can give up!

 

[Ian Grant]

I was looking at my unnamed Air Ministry 8" f5.6 lens yesterday, it is limited to f5.6 to f16, definitely not easy to take apart & clean. I've seen a few of the Ross 5" f4 Wide Angle lenses over the years, the WW2 AM ones were often subcontracted and can vary in quality. Usually the aperture range is limited to f4 - f11.

My other AM lens is a tiny Ross 141mm f16 EWA, probably a wide angle Protar.

Ian

 

[alexander]

Yeah, sadly this isn't one of the finer examples I don't think. Though it doesn't look exactly terrible on the GG. I was working under the assumption that the face plates had been screwed in but it absolutely won't budge (I stopped short of non-reversible attempts to get in) so doesn't seem to be the case, alas.