New LED head for De Vere 504

[interneg]

I’m on it! I’ll study the diagrams and figure out the parts I need. Right away I know I’m missing the lift pins and the nylon screws. I’ll send them a message with some pictures and go from there. Thank you!

A lot of the mechanical components in a De Vere are pretty standard, though some threads are BSF. The lift pins are essentially suitable steel rod & the nylon bolts aren't anything unusual (from recall). The lift pins tend to go missing because they fall out when someone moves the machine without realising that they're only sitting in the holes. Some of the parts like the roller bearing runners & the nylon screws have to be removed to fit the Ilford MG500 adapter.

[Tin Can]

No cutting done on the enlarger throat, but you have the triple lens flange, NG

Wake me up tomorrow and I will take more pics including the 'perch'

I am active from 5am CST to 6pm

I need more beauty sleep

For those that are concerned about my friction burns

The are now completely scabbed over

with no blood poisoning tracks

Hi Randy,

I have the Rodagon 240mm 5.6 and a custom 4x4 lens board to fit the wider barrel. I was following a 2016 thread by Neal Chaves as to how he did it -- by removing some material from the enlarger [lens] 'throat' of the Beseler: https://www.largeformatphotography.i...eler-45VXL-810

However, before going at it with a hacksaw I wanted to look at my options and what you have with the extended perch looks pretty intriguing. I'm loathe to cut away material if I didn't have to (would prefer to leave the enlarger stock).

Also, not quite sure how the custom board is held in place on the lens stage; was this part of the original conversion?

[Daniel.E]

Carl, can you post some pictures of your custom board? I’d like to see you got it done as well.

[Daniel.E]

A lot of the mechanical components in a De Vere are pretty standard, though some threads are BSF. The lift pins are essentially suitable steel rod & the nylon bolts aren't anything unusual (from recall). The lift pins tend to go missing because they fall out when someone moves the machine without realising that they're only sitting in the holes. Some of the parts like the roller bearing runners & the nylon screws have to be removed to fit the Ilford MG500 adapter.

Thank you! The tricky part is finding the correct sizes and things like that.

[Carl J]

Good news. I mounted the custom 4x4 board made for the 240mm 5.6 Rodagon on the enlarger and turns out it has enough extension so that I don't need to remove any material from the 'enlarger throat'. The under-the-lens filter holder is too short, however, so I'll have to figure that out.

Thanks.

[Daniel.E]

Who made that custom board? Eventually I'm going to need one.

[Tin Can]

No idea whom you are addressing

I also know nothing about who made mine, but any machinist can

Who made that custom board? Eventually I'm going to need one.

[Daniel.E]

Sorry about referring to Carl J’s custom board

[Carl J]

Hi Daniel,

Sorry for the delay, had to look it up. The board was from Jose at https://customphototools.com in Portugal. I think I heard of them either here or over on photrio.com.

[Carl J]

Even though the 240mm f5.6 Rodagon wasn't listed among his standard sizes for the Beseler 4x4 lensboards he understood exactly what was needed having worked with large lenses for Beseler's previously, he wrote:

"Usually lenses with large thread need a lensboard with a threaded flange to get the rear end of the lens on the same plane of the lensboard. This is for the rear end of the lens not hit the enlarger where the lensboard is mounted".

Pricing was also very reasonable.