Alternatives to Durst CLS 450 head

[mbuonocore]

I've been given a Durst Laborator 1000 with a CLS450 head. It's a beautifully built machine, that reminds me of my first enlarger - an M605 - on steroids.

It won't be my primary enlarger - I've got a 138S that is hard to beat - but I'd like to use it. It came with the Uniwal wall mount that would be great to set up.

With all this said, I hate the colour head for black and white work. Spinning through the yellow and red filters for split grade printing makes me batty. The way I print, it doesn't fit well. I've used a Saunders 4500 VCCE, and that system kept the spinning of wheels to a minimum.

The mixing boxes, and the diffuse quality of light, are fantastic. I'd like to keep them if I could. Is there a way I could replace the dichroic filters perhaps, to make the setup similar to the 4500 VCCE?

Edmund Optics sells dichroic filters:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/optical-filters/color-dichroic-filters/additive-subtractive-dichroic-color-filters/1734/

But I don't see anything in the right size. I'd be happy with just full blue and full green, and a way of switching between the two.

I guess what I'm looking for is ideas - I'm not great at thinking outside the box. The community often has wonderful solutions that I don't even consider.

I know there's the Heiland Split grade, but it seems clunky and expensive. Kienzle makes light systems, but I've never heard of anyone owning one. I've seen a fellow on APUG making an LED light source for his Omega D5 and Durst 138, but I'm not sure the CLS450 head has enough room to work with.

I'd be happy to make a winter project out of this, which is a good thing to have in Toronto when the city freezes over.

Any ideas would be very welcome. Thanks!

[ic-racer]

Use the Ilford 00 and 5. One used to be able to buy them individually.

[mbuonocore]

Do you mean the regular Multigrade gel filters? I'd love to use them, but I can't think of a place to put them. I though about making a slot in the Taunodap, but there's really no room. A filter slot would solve all my problems!

I don't like to go beneath the lens, as I've had funny results with flare.

[ic-racer]

I made a holder for under the lens that fits on the red-filter stalk.
Another member had a Durst head that had a 'supplemental' filter on a lever in the head. I advised he could put the yellow in the supplemental filter slot and keep the magenta on 170 all the time. To split grade he uses the 'white' filter lever to get the magenta out of the way and slides the 'supplementary' lever in place that brings in yellow and so on.
My recommendation is to make exposures with both the yellow and magenta at the same time. It can make life much easier. Instead of dealing with times for each color you deal with the 'CC' number on each filter.

141588

[mbuonocore]

Hi ic-racer, that's a pretty clever system, and I appreciate the simplicity of it.

As I mentioned above, however, I'd rather avoid using any filters beneath the lens whatsoever. I'd rather fiddle around with dialing in the yellow and red.

The enlarger is being brought down to the darkroom this week, so once it's set up proper - and not in my back room! - I'll have a better chance to look at it. I can run the situation by the other member's who share the space, and maybe one of them will have a clever solution.