Building an 8 x 10 enlarger

I had an opportunity a week ago to visit a friends and make some enlargements from my 8 x 10 negs. What an experience that was. Now, unfortnately, I'm faced with the reality of wanting one myself so I can do my own enlargements in my darkroom. I have an old Bessler 5 x 7 enlarger that I use for my 4 x 5's and 5 x 7's. Trying to locate an old 8 x 10 enlarger near where I live that someone wants to sell (for an affordable price) is not likely to happen.

So - I'm thinking that building one might not be all that difficult. I thought about building an adaptor head for the 5 x 7 enlarger and that is one option. I was on the Aristo website and they actually have a cold light head conversion kit for my enlarger - for $1750 - ouch! The other thing I was considering is converting an 8 x 10 camera. Would it be as simple as re-building the 8 x 10 camera back to accept a film holder and then putting an 8 x 10 cold light head on top?

Have any of you out there tried this before and what advice can you give me? I don't want to get into something that is going to be a nightmare construction project.

Dan, here's something you might give a try if you have an old camera lying around. It is a purpose built enlarger but is nothing more than a modified camera back with a cold light head. It works like a charm and is portable for my limited space. A 48x60 pegboard vacuum easel is permanently on the wall and the enlarger set up/taken down when needed.
erik

I haven't tried to make a horizontal enlarger but I found this picture of a homemade enlarger. I'm sure there are people out there doing it, AA built his with incandescent bulbs then switch to a cold light head when they became available. The most costly piece other than the lens is the cold light head. Gravity helps with the negative and filters too.

Dan,

Take a look in my gallery. There are two pictures of a Durst 138S, a 5x7 enlarger, converted to an 8x10. Michael Mutmansky made the conversion. I bought it from him. He used a 12x12 Aristo cold light head instead of 10x10 to avoid fall off on the edges. There is an inch/mm scale beside the enlarger to give you more information. He added two filter holders that swing out underneath the lens to allow for split grade printing FBVC paper. The glass negative carrier is about ¾ of an inch below the light. One glass is anti Newton.

Do a search here and on the LF Forum. Much has been written on this subject as many of us fell into the same GAS hole. I do 16x20 and 20x24 enlargements. The detail and tonal range of the 8x10 negative at that low magnification is something to lust after. Pastor Powers forgives you the sin of lustification. Say two Hail 8x10s and send a box of home made chocolate chip cookies to Bath, Ohio.

John Powers

You must have an 8x10 camera? Right?

I would try and make something that adapts that camera to an enlarger. You will need a very sturdy tripod or some way to mount the camera to a table. I would make an easel that fits where the film holder goes, and just remove the ground glass, then, make an adapter that fits over the whole rear standard and holds the head. Cold light would probably be the way to go, first to avoid the heat, but also to avoid the condenser problem.

You simply print through the lens you have on the camera, change the print size by moving the camera and focus by focusing the camera.

I think if you thought this through very throughly and made some detailed plans, it wouldn't take very long to set up the rig.

well, since i don't shoot 8x10 all that regularly, and when i need to enlarge it, i rent a darkroom with an 8x10 enlarger, i might not be the most qualified person to talk about this subject. i'll share what i think anyhow . 8x10 enlargers, horizontal or vertical, are big mothers. but you already know that . if you're in for a couple days to a couple month session of carpentry and sweat during these summer months, by all means build your own, or convert as you stated already.

first, do you want a horizontal or vertical enlarger? the one i rent is a devere 5108 with a color head(i haven't enlarged 8x10 b/w yet, only color negs), and its a treat to use, i can see why they're called the rolls-royce's of enlargers, and why commercial labs used them, they're like butter. albeit you need about 10' of headroom if you rack up the head really high. and sometimes 220v, depending on the PS and the head on the thing. if you want a horizontal, prepare a space about 5'x10'-15' long, and using a rail system i believe would be easiest. check out AA's enlarger that he used. it was on rails, and i believe it was a converted process-camera. really sweet, but BIG!

best of luck on the project, when you finish it(if you decide to build that is), post some pics so we can see?

-dan

I was in the same boat. I had all these 8x10 negs and the only thing I could do was to contact print them. So I really wanted to get my own 8x10 enlarger. The extremely tight space in my darkroom, about 2.2m x 2.5m, (all of it taken up by sink and existing counter space) meant that the only type of enlarger it could accommodate was a vertical, counter-top one. Not too many of those around for 8x10. So I decided to build my own.

My first attempt included using my existing 8x10 camera as an enlarger head by mounting it onto a vertical column. But the Wisner Traditional is actually quite heavy and wasn't really meant to be mounted facing straight down. Also, I didn't like mounting and dismounting the camera over my head.

So this year, over the last few weekends, I'm building an enlarger head. Here are some photos of the current work-in-progress piece. What's left to do is to make the neg carrier and the bellows and to paint it black. But you might get a better indication of how it's put together with the wood still unpainted.

The only thing I would do differently would be to use 1/4 inch thick aluminum square tubing for the post rather than the existing 1/8 inch thick piece. When the enlarger is at max height, it takes a while for any vibrations to settle down. But on the other hand the current enlarger is very light. I can pick it up and carry it around by myself.

Dan,
When I made my 5 x 4 enlarger I had a tiny darkroom with only enough room for one enlarger. This was a Meopta Opemus 6, wall mounted, which I needed for 35mm and 120. The head has a metal spigot sticking out the back with a groove machined in it. This makes the head removeable.
I believe other Meopta enlargers have the same arrangement. I made a similar metal spigot, fixed it to the back of my home-made 5 x 4 enlarger head, and this allowed me to fix whichever head I needed to the column.
For the bellows of my 5 x 4 enlarger I used the removable bellows off my my home made 5 x 4 camera. For a light source I used a commercial fluorescent light, readily available from any shop that sells lighting. The tube is bent into a square. They come in different sizes and I am sure you could get one big enough to cover 10 x 8. I used a diffuser underneath the light made from opal plastic, but the lighting units referred to above come with round plastic diffuser covers, which could probably be utilised.
To focus the enlarger I used the friction focussing mechanism off an old beat up enlarger someone was throwing out. If you could get an old meopta to use its column, you could probably utilise the focus mechanism as well

One drawback with the light source. It splutters when you turn it on and takes a few seconds to reach full brightness. So you can't use a timer wired into the enlarger. I simply hold my hand over the lens, switch on , wait a few seconds, remove my hand and time the exposure with a clock.

Hope this helps.

Alan Clark

Dan,
Having just re-read what i posted above I feel that I should point out that what I was really recommending was the lighting system. The other ideas-utilising parts from existing enlargers, may be of limited help when making something as big as a 10 x 8 enlarger. But others whose ambitions are more modest may get a few ideas from what I wrote.
That said, the Meopta Magnifax is a big beast with a very sturdy column.

Alan Clark

To think I have a nice one and I haven't even set it up yet! Yes I'm going to keep it 12x12 cold light head and all. Cropped 11x14's?


Jim

Wow - this is all terrific - just what I needed. I think that the right choice for me is to build an adapter box for a cold light head on top of the 5 x 7 enlarger that I already have. I don't have room in my darkroom for a horizontal enlarger but I think I have the vertical space to work with the enlarger. I'll post photos of it when I get it finished for all to see. I think it's going to be similar to what John Powers has.

To all who posted photos, thanks a lot. It gave me lots of ideas.

Jim - are you sure that you don't need a temporary home for your enlarger? I know how little space you have and I can surely find space for it.

Dan

Dan,

Good luck. Let me know if there are any details I can add.

John

Dan, who knows? I'm so sucked in with carbon printing that one never knows. For the time being I have to keep looking at it. Same reason I have not sold off all of my Azo yet.

Jim

Dan Dozer said:

Wow - this is all terrific - just what I needed. I think that the right choice for me is to build an adapter box for a cold light head on top of the 5 x 7 enlarger that I already have.

Click to expand...

In case you don't have access to the APUG galleries to see the picture, this is John's fantastic 8x10 conversion.