British darkroom equipment in 1962. Specific question: how heavy would a good enlarger have been?

Hi all,
I've come to this forum with a specific question: How heavy was a good enlarger (with base) in 1962.

I want it to be heavy, btw, for plot purposes...

I'm writing a novel for 12 year-olds set in 1962, using some childhood experiences. My dad was a captain in the British Merchant Navy -- and a photography enthusiast. He had a darkroom in the bathroom attached to the ship's hospital (which was never actually used). I spent time with him in the darkroom enjoying the magic of seeing prints emerge from whiteness and all that. I'm 71 so I was a kid aboard ship a lot throughout the sixties.

My book is a spy mystery related to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October that year. Target audience includes geeky kids interested in the beginnings of the telecommunications world we live in today - and also spies, and adventure. The story also makes use of the Telstar satellite and Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall.

My heroine has found a strip of microfilm on the ship (which is laid up at King Harry Ferry in Cornwall, UK for the summer).

She has an idea: to use her dad's enlarger to see what's on the microfilm. It's from a MInox subminiature camera so the frames are around 1/4 inch in height - as far as I have been able to find out. Any corrections regarding that would be welcome too.

I'd like to know how heavy the enlarger might be. It could be a 1958 to early 62 model. And as big as they get. My dad splurged on really good equipment.

It's not crucial, but I'd like the enlarger (with its base) to be too heavy for her to to lift up onto the stack of books/magazines she's piled up -- to get greater height and thus make the enlargement bigger. (Just because too heavy gives her motivation to enroll kid allies!)

(She'll even want to swivel the enlarger around the pole and point it to photographic paper that's flattened somehow on the floor, to get a big enough enlargement. I'm not sure how large that would make the enlargement be. The enlarger is on a bathtub that's been covered with a slab of wood. That's the way it was in my dad's darkroom!)

Besides this question of weight of enlarger... If any of you have historical knowledge of photography/darkrooms that include those that might have existed in early July, 1962 - or know someone who does, or have a source where I might find such people -- I'd love to have a technical review of two pages (around 700 words) in which my heroine and her two kid allies make prints from the microfilm - and discover its secret. Your name in the acknowledgements would be assured!

Thanks for reading - if you got this far!
Jackie

Welcome aboard!

Jascoe said:

It's not crucial, but I'd like the enlarger (with its base) to be too heavy for her to to lift up onto the stack of books/magazines she's piled up

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I think you should be safe. I'd expect the average enlarger in the early 1960s to be especially bulky enough to make it plausible that a 12-year old kid would struggle (at least a bit) handling it.

I'm alerting @Ian Grant and @Lachlan Young of this thread; I think they would be capable of providing just the knowledge you're looking for.

Thank you very much! I appreciate your input, and that you've alerted others who may have relevant knowledge!
Jackie

I have the perfect British enlarger for you.



The Gnome 35mm Iniversum, came in a compact box with a carrying handle, introduced in 1948, the two top right illustrations. Small, light, uses a 12v old style car headlight bulb, and has a transformer.

I have one it was my first enlarger, I kept badgering a local electrical store with a small photo section, looking for a second-hand enlarger. One day they called me to say we have an enlarger for you, this was 1968, they had been having a tidy and found the enlarger which was new but the case had some damaged, they said if you buy a lens from us the enlarger is yours for free. Of course, I accepted.

I still have it, I'd guess 4 kg, but I could weigh it tomorrow if you want. The Universum also swivels to be a slide projector.

I should add most 35mm/120 enlargers made in the late 50s/early 60s were quite light-weight, this one was heavier because despite being small it was made up of castings, had cooling fins, and a relatively heavy transformer. More importantly, you could swivel the column and place the enlarger on its box or books to make greater enlargements, the transformer was heavy enough to be the counter-weight.

Ian

Jascoe said:

Thank you very much! I appreciate your input, and that you've alerted others who may have relevant knowledge!
Jackie

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Very welcome, and good luck with the book!

Ian Grant said:

I have the perfect British enlarger for you.

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It sounds a little too good, in fact! At around 4kg and with low bulk, a 12-year old would have likely handled it with ease.
What other enlargers in e.g. the Gnome lineup from that era were common, but a little more unwieldy? Sounds like this would help the plot!

Hi Ian,
Thanks for that info about light weight of enlargers of the day. This enlarger would have really tickled my dad's fancy!

The Gnome - what a great name!!

Thanks -
Jackie

Yes based on the dates given I was going to suggest a Beta Gnome which I have got but it's actually remarkably light in weight but maybe not so much with the condensers in it if it's a 12 year old It certainly looks the part for todays 12 year olds but I am sure there must have been more substantial ones

pentaxuser

An enlarger can also be just plain awkward to try to move, if you're a average-sized 12-year-old. The fact that the head is well above the baseboard could make it difficult for a child to wrangle.

koraks said:

Very welcome, and good luck with the book!



It sounds a little too good, in fact! At around 4kg and with low bulk, a 12-year old would have likely handled it with ease.
What other enlargers in e.g. the Gnome lineup from that era were common, but a little more unwieldy? Sounds like this would he

Don_ih said:

An enlarger can also be just plain awkward to try to move, if you're a average-sized 12-year-old. The fact that the head is well above the baseboard could make it difficult for a child to wrangle.

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Yes - I think "unwieldy" would be enough. If she just fumbles somehow and makes a noise and the other girl character is in her adjoining cabin.... that will work!

Thanks both of you!

Jascoe said:

If she just fumbles somehow and makes a noise

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If the top of the head falls off a Focomat or Valoy, it'll sound like a bell when it hits the floor.

Oh, that would be fun! sneaks around then Boing! - thanks Don_ih!

FYI - My dad was likely to buy top quality - my mother used to complain about the expensive cameras he'd buy - and then give away to friends and buy the next great thing! But he'd also plouter through second hand shops. So - wide range of options.

I wonder if there's a model of one of these Focomat or Valoy enlargers that would have been used in 1962 Britain. Actually his ship carried iron ore and plied the Atlantic ports from South America to Canada and from Africa to Murmansk. So that widens the options I guess. It would be great if there was a manual online for a suitable one.

So appreciating the help - thanks to all.
Jackie

Jascoe said:

Yes - I think "unwieldy" would be enough. If she just fumbles somehow and makes a noise and the other girl character is in her adjoining cabin.... that will work!

Thanks both of you!

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Certainly the Gnome Beta looks lighter than what it is in the sense that what appears to be a lightweight metal lampshade sort of thing contains solid glass condensers that are hidden, so surprisingly unwieldy is a good description of how it would seem to a 12 year old

pentaxuser

I've never seen a Gnome enlarger, but the first enlarger I ever used (in the US) was an ancient Federal that my dad had which looked pretty similar. Two remarks are that with the baseboard, an enlarger is pretty awkward for a small person to move, even if not heavy. Second, some enlargers like this adjusted in height with a sort of spring balanced pantograph arrangement, rather than a geared column, and that sprung pantograph could be quite noisy. IIRC if you let go of the lock and the head shot up or down you would get a pretty good sproing-bang. Dropping it would be an unholy racket.

Jascoe said:

I wonder if there's a model of one of these Focomat or Valoy enlargers that would have been used in 1962 Britain.

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They're German, made by Leitz, and they were (and still are) considered very good. I'm sure there were some in Britain.

But do you really need to worry about the brand? The description should be good enough.

Jascoe said:

I'd like to know how heavy the enlarger might be. It could be a 1958 to early 62 model. And as big as they get. My dad splurged on really good equipment.

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Hi, I'm from the US so probably have a bit of a different outlook on the equipment. In that era I would see a typical pro-type enlarger as being either a Beseler 45 (up to 4" x 5" negatives) or an Omega D-series (also up to 4"x5"). Note that enlargers have a maximum size negative, limited by the size of the light source (which is in the odd-shaped thing at the top), but can generally handle a range of smaller negatives.

But as a general rule you would not wanna be moving these things around too much. Not that they're all that heavy, but a bit awkward and subject to slight misalignment issues when moved. Fwiw the Beseler 45 series can't be rotated on a pole but DOES allow the entire head to be rotated to horizontal (to allow projection onto a wall, or whatever).

Anyway, a lot of info can be found on this website..

Ps, the reason I suggest 4x5 inch enlargers is that 4x5 inch press cameras of an earlier era were still around. Although by 1962 I'd say they were largely replaced for press usage by things such as the Rolleiflex TLR using 120 roll film (2 1/4" square negatives in my lingo). The 4x5" enlargers could generally handle roll film or even 35mm film negatives.

Mr Bill said:

In that era I would see a typical pro-type enlarger as being either a Beseler 45 (up to 4" x 5" negatives) or an Omega D-series (also up to 4"x5").

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The Royal Navy used De Vere for a long time, but this personal equipment and the Merchant Navy, so it's potentially a sliding scale up to and including the De Vere 54 (hefty, but lighter than a 504) or something like an MPP Micromatic (Omega E-3/4 facsimile) - but I think those, which are all about the same weight as a Focomat IIc, would be definitively too heavy for the purposes of the story. Either way, a minimum operating distance of 5-6ft from neg to paper would be needed for the sort of enlargement probably required.

@Ian Grant out of interest, how heavy was the Lines & Jones 4x5 machine?

@Jascoe you can find a near contemporaneous article on microfilm enlarging requirements in your specific context here.

I had a 6x6 MPP enlarger for a while. I was moving it around in my late teens and I used to split the base and the column to do it. I'd put the weight close to a Beseler 45 without the head, but the MPP was even more unbalanced.

The MPP would let the column rotate on the base board to allow 'over the table edge' enlargement. It was a tall beast - it did 8x enlargement of 6x6 negatives using the usual 75/80mm lens. Not the best carrier to do microfilm with, but it could be bodged up.

The MPP was a bit like the Leitz enlargers in that the head was on a parallelogram mount that allowed some height adjustment without un-clamping the head on the column.

A couple of 12 year olds could move it with care, but three would be better.

Your dad, buying expensive equipment would have liked Leitz enlargers. Here a picture of my Leitz Valoy II which was in production from the late fifties to the late sixties.
This is a light and small enlarger. First they were black, then blue-ish grey, then finally light grey like the one in the picture. Not sure of the year when it turned light grey.

Mine is a bit misleading because the nameplate is from an earlier black version, normally the light grey versions come with the red dot nameplate. My Valoy II does have the baseboard, the one in the picture is attached to a Leitz table clamp which can turn this enlarger into a reproduction device. Not bad for a spy.

Both the Leitz Focomat Ic and Valoy II are 35mm enlargers. They come with replaceble negative carriers down to Minox size, which is 8x11mm. Also attached.

The Ic is the heavier and larger enlarger between the two.

Lachlan Young said:

@Ian Grant out of interest, how heavy was the Lines & Jones 4x5 machine?

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The Line & Jones enlargers were quite light-weight, about the same as a Gnome Cadet or Master II, sold in 1962.

It's worth noting that here in the UK/Europe in the 1960s only a small proportion of professional photographers used LF cameras, and would have had LF enlargers, Amateur photographers predominantly used 35mm cameras, with a small percentage shooting 120, in 1962 that was predominantly TLRs, or folding cameras.

So rule out any LF enlargers.

Leitz enlargers were not very common here in the UK in 1962, Gnome & Photax made enlargers similar to the Valoy band dominated the market, Durst were still sellingg high-end professional enlargers here. Gnome had 80% of the UK market for enlargers in the 1960s, and exported to Germany.

The OP needs to think laterally, lifting an enlarger to get more than the top of the column enlargement only works if you can swing the column around.



This is from my Universum instructions, the only problem is the enlarger actually has a different column, angled. I did make 20"x16" prints with it a couple of times.
It's also heavier than I'd thought 6.1kg.

Think unwieldy because it doesn't balance until you add weight to the baseboard, in this case the transformer is heavy enough to counter-balance.

Ian