I'd be interested to hear from anyone with experience using an older Beseler 5x7 enlarger called the "5x7 diffusion enlarger." I find few references to this model on-line, and none in the archives of this forum, which makes me wonder how common the model was. This is a large enlarger of the sort I'd expect to have found in a commercial lab or in the graphic arts trade back in the day.
It's nearly 6' tall, has a motorized head to raise a lower it, and clearly began its life with one of those great big light sources that look like a cross between a 50s beauty parlor hair dryer and a Conehead. This component is missing from mine, but I'm assuming I can get an Aristo cold head to fit--anyone know the size? Should I remove the opaque white diffuser above the negative carrier when making this change? Other than a missing lens and lensboard and a lot of really gnarly spiderwebs, it looks good to go. I haven't dealt with these motors before, and don't know if they need maintenance. I assume I need to disconnect the blower/cooling system if I switch to a cold light source. I haven't been able to check if it's still properly square, and would be interested to hear from others if this was an issue with this type of enlarger. The column is quite rigid, so I imagine it doesn't tend to go off, but I see no way to adjust it if it did. I've e-mailed Beseler for any information they retain on this beast, but I'm not too hopeful about thier archives.
Now if anyone's got parts , or a manula, for these things... Failing that, experience will have to do! Many thanks,
Bookmarks