Thanks. I loosened the screws and managed using a modicum of force to straighten the blade out. It is now OK.
The other thing that bothers me is that the paper is not held fast by the easel like with my LPL. The LPL guides 'pinch' the paper and hold it steady as the easel is closed. This one the paper is free to move. Is this how it should be? There is about a mm of clearance above the paper to the top left of the easel as it closes so the only things holding the paper still are the blades themselves. I guess this does not affect anything, but feels strange after the LPL.
I also noticed that one of the metal guides that slot into the border setting slots is very slightly bent which means the paper cannot be straightforwardly aligned into the top left corner. This was sold as a 'Rolls Royce of easels', but it looks like I got a Morris Minor. It will work, but it could have been better.
Yes, it should hold the paper well with essentially no gap between the arms and the paper. And when the frame is lowered the guide rod should contact the base allowing the blade ends to move out of contact with it instead being left in contact with the paper along their length.
The gap at the casting is probably due to the spring rod anchor being bent, or the rod or its sliding bracket being bent, or all of the above. Another possibility is the left side hinge is forced up or was reinstalled incorrectly. Same thing for the right side hinge. The rod that acts as the hinge could also be bent forcing the frame to not be parallel to the base surface. You'll want to make sure the hinge line is parallel to the base and each end isn't bent, which can also happen.
The movable metal stops are actually L-shaped extrusions which should be pretty hard to bend but if so it'll have to be bent back and this may not be possible. You can use a strip of 1/16" thick metal as a substitute.
The 16x20 version I picked up off the bay was extensively damaged having a homemade right side hinge, the original having been destroyed in shipping. It was a bit too low causing a similar problem to the one you're seeing. With a bit of care it was moved up and back to just the right point where the screws could be torqued down to hold it in place and it worked out well.
One of the stops was lost and replaced with a 1/16" thick aluminum strip which works well enough. Paper is held when the frame is lowered but there's no damage to the left side either the corner casting or the spring rod and associated parts.
The only issue is the corner where the borders meet at the casting has a little bit of bleed whereas the other three corners are dead square and crisp. A bit of work with touch of epoxy and a needle file would fix it but at the moment it's not important enough to dink with. BTW, the foam on the back degenerates so you might want to get some wide, self-adhesive EDPM weatherstripping and apply it where the originals go, after removal and cleaning, to get the easel to sit more parallel to the enlarger baseboard.
HTH,
Pete
