Zone VI 8x10 Enlarger w/ VC Head and timer new to me any advice

Here's the unit installed. No comments about the plumbing. It was a quick, cheap and works. Now to clean up. I can get a little over 20x24, on the 60 inch column. I can always go back to my good old Elwood with a 12 in Ilex Paragon. That baby has a silvered dome that's about 3 feet in diameter and will lay over for projection. Years ago a buddy and I made some 6 foot long panshots with that beast. Only problem is I don't have a 12 foot ceiling in my house :-)
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Looks good!

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Originally Posted by ic-racer

Nice that you have that lens. Like the Beseler 8x10 conversion, the short lens might be essential. The column does not have that much length for big enlargements, and small enlargements require lots of bellows draw with a 300mm lens. Have you had a chance to fire it up and check the projection? In terms of illumination, I'd be more concerned with evenness. My first 8x10 enlarger had an old Aristo 1414 (that is a 14" grid) and it did this. That is a test print with no negative in the carrier. I had to use a center filter to print with that!

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I think you had a glass carrier with dust in the corners ;) I gest! So most of my printing will be the old two stops up from wide open, so f/11. I know I should know this but aperture shouldn't effect light distribution should it? Darn thing is very bright on focus with both tubes on max. With the 240mm the bellows have just enough draw to make a reduction to about 6x8. Man I got to stop finding "bargains" Just my wife and I, she's an artist, 4 bedroom house full. We converted the family room into her studio.
I'm trying to find serious young people that will actually use things and giving them starter kits.
I will give it a test to see what the light distribution looks like. The "5x7" head you can see the falloff with your naked eye. For 4x5 I'm sure it would be fine.
Goal for this week is every night, try to clean and store, outside the darkroom. Need to get ready to print!
Best Regards, thanks for all the Info and help to All., Mike

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Originally Posted by Duolab123

It's clearly a real stretch to try to take a 4x5 enlarger and make it into a 8x10. Still it will work for me. 200 bucks. I really have no clue how I will focus as there are no extension shafts. Maybe I will get a knuckle and a 20 inch extension for a 1/4 inch ratchet :)
I would love a Devere. But explaining to my wife why I need a 1200 lb 10 foot tall enlarger that cost, even used, real money. It ain't gonna happen. There was a Devere dichro with all the light integrator boxes ,carriers, really nice, I think they wanted around 3500, again a steal for a nice example. Fortunately for me I didn't pounce or I would be living in our garden shed
Best Mike

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I have the same 8/10, 5x7 setup. My arms aren't that long, especially not that long. So, I picked up an Omega focus extension. Removing a focus know from an Omega D series enalrger reveals a rod. One end of the Omega extension fits onto that rod and can be tightened. The same is similarly true of the Zone VI 8x10, except the revealed rod is a different diameter. My idea was to have an adapter made to use the Omega extension on the Zone VI enlarger.

As it turned out, one showed up on EBay, so I sold the Omega extension. Zone VI extensions, on occasion, still show up on EBay. One did a few months ago. But, it's not something on which one can plan.

As for my Zone VI (Type II) enlarger, I like it a lot. For example, I like the oversized negative carriers that enable one to print the entire negative. So many of the negative carriers on other enlargers (Beseler, Omega, Durst, etc.) cut off quite a bit of the negative. I also like that fact that Zone Vi enlarger can be easily adjusted. I bought the Versalab Parallel kit from a member (herein), and it's worked well for me.

While I have both the VC heads (8x10, 5x7), I don't use them much. I have a Beseler 45s head that works well with a Beseler adapter that Zone VI (and Calumet) made for that purpose. I primarily print 4x5.

I made my own stand for the enlarger and anchored it at the top with a stabilizer kit.

It's good that you have the instructions for the head. I ran across mine and read a bit of it. I was a little surprised to learn that there's an incorrect turn-on sequence which can potentially damage the head. (Or something like that.)