Durst L1840 Enlarger 8x10 10x10--Everything you wanted to know...

[Andrea Gazzoni]

I have cut and beveled AN negative carrier glass in the past,

now that's interesting, with a dremel!

[Andrea Gazzoni]

BTW the glass is beautiful!! The AN surface appears to have the exact same texture as my Durst AN glass.

I thought my existing glass was fine, but by side-by-side comparison to the new glass, my existing glass looks all beat up.

how was their price?

[ic-racer]

now that's interesting, with a dremel!

Yes that is the diamond bit. It cut through 2mm glass edge with not too many passes.
I'm sure I could get it to work for this new glass, but two edges need to be beveled the entire 10 inches. The other two sides, where the locking mechanism resides, only need a bevel over about 3 inches or so for the lock to catch.

[ic-racer]

how was their price?

$120 for the plain and $150 for the AN. Not unreasonable, but they had a $650 minimum, so I had to buy 4 pieces. In the end that was ok because, although I only needed one spare set, both of my carriers' glass will benefit from the fresh glass.

[Drew Wiley]

Actual glass edging routers (more like a mini router table with special bits) aren't terribly expensive, or could be rigged up even adapting a toyish Dremel Mini Router Table, if you select the right bit. Just clamp everything down good, and protect eyes and hands. Experiment first. Or just pay a local glass shop a token fee to do it for you. Typically, these AN glass types need to same kind of tooling as for tempered glass, but for a slightly different reason.

If I were personally to do glass edging on volume scale, I'd use my deluxe full sized router station with its superb dust extraction. But the appropriate kind of diamond bit for that thing would cost hundred of dollars; so I never go there. Shaping wood, even phenolic, etc - whole different story.

[ic-racer]

So, I'm not too happy with Knight Optical. Apperently they can't make the bevel I specified. They are only telling me this after I complained and after I have paid for the glass and have it in my hand.

Anyway, rather than ruin my day, I just beveled it myself.

[ic-racer]

The frustrating part was that all the handling to do the bevel made the glass dirty and it needed to be cleaned which was a real chore.

After all the work now I have beautiful new glass in my negative carrier. A little bit of a nightmare but at least it is over and who knows, in 5 years perhaps there won't be ANY place to get the glass.

[Christopher Nisperos]

Bravo! Great work.

[Andrea Gazzoni]

just received a small lot of parts for my 184.
included were these new-to-me metal "masks" of sorts.
they are made of sheet metal: 0,85mm thick.
I've gor six pieces which measure about

1x 8x12"
2x 4 2/3 x 12"
1x 2 1/4 x 12"
2x 2 x 12"

each has two metal "pegs", looks like these were meant to be placed inside something, maybe an easel.
only one piece has a marking "with border/borderless".

any idea?

[Drew Wiley]

Looks like the adjustable kind which fit inside the enlarger right below the negative stage. They're somewhat a headache to get to unless you have the entire top off already.