I'm just kicking around the idea of making a simple horizontal 8x10 enlarger. The maximum elargement will probably be 16x20, but allowing for possible cropping 3x seems to be a reasonable limit. At 3x enlargement what will be the approximate distance between the lens (say 300mm) and the negative?

At this stage I think I'll probably have a simple overlapping box arrangement to provide most of the extension and rails and bellows from an old speed graphic to provide the fine focus.

OK, now for what is probably a stupid question... Is it possible to use a flash as the light source, say something like a Metz 45? Or a couple of them, as they are cheap secondhand. I've heard of pulsed Xenon heads and that set me wondering. Admittedly, it would be difficult to focus but there may be ways around that.