Bessler 23C question

I have shot 35mm and medium format for 55 years and done my own darkroom work, when I used to shoot 4x5 I took it to my lab at school BUT NOW...... There is no lab in Seattle that will do my photo's quickly so I am doing my own. Down my question;
Can I modify my Bessler 23C to do my 4x5 negs up to 8x10 size prints?
Any help would be appreciated.
agovbug

Not really. You'd have to replace the entire head to accommodate a bigger negative holder, and cast a bigger beam of light so that it would illuminate the edges of the 4x5 film. I mean, technically yes you could replace those parts to do it. But it would be cheaper and easier to find a used Beseler 45MX or something similar.

If you keep an eye out long enough, I'm sure a good 4x5 enlarger will pop up sooner or later. And when they do, they're often not too expensive. I got mine for free, with a little bit of patience.

Eight or ten years ago member konakoa presented a very clever modification of the Beseler 23C to handle 4x5 negatives. He built an LED-based UV/Green head (you'll absolutely need a bigger light source!) and used modified Omega carriers, along with several physical modifications he made to the enlarger parts themselves. This is a permanent modification and the enlarger will no longer be usable for 35mm and 6x6/6x7. I'm not sure if his writeup still exists on the Interwebs somewhere.

Aovbug- Are you wanting to print b+w or color? I have some excess equipment I would be willing to give you that would allow you to print b+w. I have most of the parts to put an Omega D2 together - you would need a lens, a power supply, some negative carriers and possibly a couple minor parts. And I have an Omega 67 that I think is complete, but I don't think that will print 4x5.

I do have an Omega color head we could retrofit to the D2 chassis but I actually paid for that so I would have to charge you a little for that.

I live a little east of Olympia. Get in touch and let me know.

Steve Goldstein said:

Eight or ten years ago member konakoa presented a very clever modification of the Beseler 23C to handle 4x5 negatives. He built an LED-based UV/Green head (you'll absolutely need a bigger light source!) and used modified Omega carriers, along with several physical modifications he made to the enlarger parts themselves. This is a permanent modification and the enlarger will no longer be usable for 35mm and 6x6/6x7. I'm not sure if his writeup still exists on the Interwebs somewhere.

Click to expand...

This is the post you refer to: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/diy-4x5-enlarger-and-led-head.70129/#post-985214

His website is no longer alive but it's in the internet archive. The pictures that went with it are gone. https://web.archive.org/web/20120607041152/http://www.deadbread.com/crumbs/23c.html