now all you'll need is an "engineer Fred" cap...
aren't they beautiful DK? The factory is about 40 miles north of where I'm sitting...
now all you'll need is an "engineer Fred" cap...
aren't they beautiful DK? The factory is about 40 miles north of where I'm sitting...
additionally ... The HPU device mitch mentions is a first-surface mirror so it's a fragile sucker. It comes with a leather sock to protect it. It's adequate for poster prints with some fine-tuning. It's no substitute for a horizontal enlarger. Stephen Shuart had a gaggle of these NIB for cheap. Might check with him.
Trib, I've never seen the factory, where is that, Oklahoma?? But, I have had some experience with their customer service, which was top-notch. We've got a densitometer they made, and the thing's built like a tank. We've got one of their revolving doors too, I'd love to have one of their package enlargers, but man, we just can't afford that stuff on state budgets....the funny thing about our new darkroom is that it was designed like 15 years ago (before my time) as a mural darkroom. The room is huge, bigger than our studio. But they only budgeted $200 for a "horizontal" enlarger. Where on earth are you going to find one for that? An overhead projector maybe, I don't know. I'll bet the ESECO model costs at least 25K, geesh, don't get me started here....ESECO makes great stuff though.
yeah DK, Eseco is in Cushing OK... which is just a few miles north of OKC on I35. I've used their densitometers too... the old tube style and man, it is a tank. Like you, I can only drool and dream about chugging 'round the darkroom on rails on one in my engineer fred hat... I think I'd paint it the new BNSF pumpkin scheme and pretend it was a Dash-9. I can envisage a negative carrier tender coupled to it's butt.... choo choo!
probably costs as much as a dash too....
Nathan, I use an old (really old) Elwood 8x10 enlarger for both floor use and horizontal use. It is a huge beast, but it is fairly easy to flip it. Yeah, I crawl around on the floor for the smaller prints, but a piece of foam padding or a short stool helps. Believe it or not my back hurts less from this kind of work than from normal counter-height printing. (Less repetitive.) For horizontal work, I project panoramic negs that are 6x12cm on up to 11 inches long, using a 240 G-Claron lens for all of them. Images are 14x42 or 18x36. The homemade wall easel hangs from the ceiling and is moveable on wooden tracks, so I do my size adjustments by moving that, not the enlarger. Alignment is not at all critical. It seems less critical the larger you go. I just measured the four corners of the easel with a tape measure from the lens. I test for grain focusing by doing small test prints in 6 different parts of the projection (too dim to really see it, even with my excellent grain focuser). I highly recommend Agfa Classic MG fiber paper in rolls --- I cut 25x50" pieces and tape them to the easel with black photographic tape - it holds it fine and does not tear the paper when removing it. This warm-tone paper lies flat, even hanging on the easel. If anyone has an old Elwood they will probably pay you to take it away!
Nathan, Keep it simple use a 210mm Componon S enlarging lens on a vertical enlarger covers 8X10 for my use, even a 8x10 converted 45MXR or Durst with a color head or cold light head needs little head room. Besides a horizontal solution can become very complex. Andy
210 seems to me a little short, but already a 240 works fine. I measured the distance between film and easel with the 240 lens for a 24x30 inch print from 8x10 to be just 4 feet.
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