devere 504 neg carrier help

Hi, Ive just got my 504 and the negitive carrier is proving a bit of a problem. It has two plates that fit inside, one with a resess that I assume you fit a single negitive in ? both plates have bevelled edges that clip in to the carrier but they dont fit right, if I clip them in to the bevels its almost like the one plate is bevelled on the wrong side, any help on the right order that these fit together would be appriciated. Chris
P.S. I'm using the 35mm plates.

Sounds as if you may have 2 tops or 2 bottoms to the insert. I will see if I can find my inserts to check. I use glass inserts - AN top, plain bottom for all sizes and use the mask in the head.

Cheers,
Geary

The two plates are differant in colour The one i've put in the top is black and the one with the cut out is silver, the black one has four locating pins and the silver four corrisponding holes. Its just when they all fit together the cut out is at the bottom facing the table. Can you confirm that the plate takes a single neg?
thanks Chris.

Black on the bottom, silver on the top and the bevel edges should fit snug into the carrier so the thinner parts face each other. By the sound of it, you have the right kit so no reason why it should not work. However, my preference is to have the silver on the bottom and then some anti newton glass on top to ensure the neg doesn't move.

It sounds like you have an early type set of neg plate carriers. The later ones are both black, I have both types.

Generally I would suggest that you use the plate with the four studs on the bottom, the idea is that you can slide the film inbetween the rivets/studs and within reason these studs centralise the film.

I find this is not quite the case, but very nearly so. I hold the film in place with a bit of removable Magic Tape. This tape does not leave any noticeable residue on film and pulls easily and cleanly off.

The top plate has four holes and you may find that there is a recessed area around the frame hole on one side. That recess, should face you light source. The idea is that you have a slimmer vertical edge for light to flare off, so eliminating as much as possible, degradation of your print.

Once you have the plates in and with the holder closed, check that plates are perfectly aligned, I normally find that left to right there is enough play to have the plates out by about a millimetre, simply placing you fingers inside and forcing (easy) the plates to align, takes a second or two.

Fore and aft alignment is another matter, I have to put some small paper shims in one end on the holder where the plates wedge in, this brings one plate forward about .5mm then both plates on my holder, are perfectly aligned.

The neg hole is exactly correct for a full frame 24x36mm negative, getting the plates aligned is simple, and makes life really easy.

Mick.

Thanks Mick, you were spot on, I had assumed the cut out was to position a single neg. Its all the right way around now. Regards Chris

Thanks also to Mike. Regards Chris