4 bladed easels

[Tom Kershaw]

Anyone here have experience with either the Dunco or Kaiser 4 bladed easels? I asked a while ago on APUG but thought that contributors here might have more experience dealing with larger pieces of equipment. I would be looking at a 20x24" model, used in conjunction with a DeVere 5108 enlarger.

Tom

[percepts]

To my mind a 4 bladed easel is only useful if you have limited space on your baseboard/worktop and can't move the easel to center paper under lens because of that limited space. Also the paper slots on 4 bladed easels are only good for certain paper sizes other wise you may have to tape paper to easel to hold it firmly.
A two bladed is easier to keep square.
But I'm sure there will be others who love em and wouldn't use a two bladed easel.

[Tom Kershaw]

Possibly, but a 4 bladed easel should be able to keep the paper flat and positioning accurate.

Tom

[Bob Salomon]

Yes I have experience with the Kaiser ones hands-on, original version and later versions as well.

And it is very simple to make and keep it's blades square and straight.

[Tom Kershaw]

Bob,

Have you used the Dunco easels?

Tom

[Bob Salomon]

No.

[ic-racer]

Any reason to limit just to those two brands?

[Bob Salomon]

These two brands are among the few that are not throw-aways after a few years of hard pro lab use. The Kaiser Promask 20x24" 4 blade easel weighs almost 33 pounds!. It is not a casual instrument. Very heavy duty, very precise adjustments by friction drives, gas powered pneumatic hold-open piston, adjustable for squareness, etc.
Most 4 blade easels are much, much lighter duty and shorter lived. These are not the easels that you would find at the camera store. A new 20 x 24" one is almost $1400.00 today.

[percepts]

Possibly, but a 4 bladed easel should be able to keep the paper flat and positioning accurate.

Tom

it may hold it in position when closed but if paper is not in slot which is not always positioned as you want and you just lay it on easel, then nothing is holding paper in position as you close easel. Because paper has a slight curl, it can move when you close easel. I'm sure people have found ways of overcoming this but the one I bought and returned very quickly did this. (saunders v-track). The slots were designed for the more common US paper sizes but being in UK I used 12x16 and there was not a slot for that size. Just my experience, others will likely vary.

[Bob Salomon]

it may hold it in position when closed but if paper is not in slot which is not always positioned as you want and you just lay it on easel, then nothing is holding paper in position as you close easel. Because paper has a slight curl, it can move when you close easel. I'm sure people have found ways of overcoming this but the one I bought and returned very quickly did this. (saunders v-track). The slots were designed for the more common US paper sizes but being in UK I used 12x16 and there was not a slot for that size. Just my experience, others will likely vary.

Kaiser are German not US. It has grid pins that pop-up at standard intervals for centering paper on the easel and an adjustable border guide system for borders from 2 to 45mm wide. There is a paper pre-clamping mechanism to hold the paper in the proper location while the blades are open.
Even if the paper is curled it can not shift position.