Ilford 500H head on Beseler 45M

[Paul Ewins]

Does anybody have this combination at home? I've bought a 500H head that was used on an Omega chassis and would like to use it on my Beseler 45M.

The head won't fit directly to the Beseler as the Omega has a narrower, um, throat??, so I need to make some sort of adapter to mate the two together. What I'm trying to figure out is:
a) Do you keep the condensor stage or leave it off all together, and
b) Is there a spacer tube at the bottom of the head or does it just sit flat either on the condensor stage or on top of the filter drawer.

I've got all the gizmos and connections and appear to have the correct size mixing box os it just seems to be a matter of physically connecting the head to the enlarger and I'll be right.

thanks,
Paul

[Wetrock]

I have actually done this although unsuccessfully. I made a steel plate to mount the head to the the upper part of the lens stage. I got rid of the condenser stage altogether. What I found out is that without the condenser the 500h head must sit directly ontop of the negative with a feww millimeters clearance. If it doesn't, as in my case there will be vignetting on the borders.

Jeff

[Paul Ewins]

It turns out that I don't have the right size mixing box. The Beseler one is bigger and deeper which gets it closer to the neg. Last resort will be to make a new mixing box but I'm going to haunt eBay for a while in case one turns up. I still have the condensor head so it isn't stopping me from printing and thus I can afford to be patient.

[John Schneider]

For the proper mixing box, contact Ross Tabacoff at pretzelride@optonline.net. He is a former (retired, I think) Ilford employee who worked on the MG systems, and has a small stock of parts for sale.

As for the adapter, I have a sketch I made lying around somewhere. However, for attaching to a Beseler (as opposed to a Durst, for instance) you can probably make one from sheet metal without a formal drawing. It is an octagonal pattern, about 0.040 thick as I remember.