Easel for large 645

[mrtoml]

I realised today that I have a problem with my easel and 645 negatives. I wanted to enlarge 645 negatives to 12x16 paper, but I cannot do this with my current setup (an LPL 7700 and RRB 12x16 easel). The problem is that the column of the enlarger gets in the way of the easel - with the orientation of the 645 mask being vertical rather than horizontal - so anything larger than 9.5x12 is impossible because of the 2 inches of border induced by the easel itself (hope that makes sense).

Is there a good easel that will allow me to do this? I don't want to go back to the cheap LPL type easels. Nor do I want to fiddle around with dismantling the enlarger.

Cheers.

 

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, the negative carrier can be inserted from the side, instead of the front. Hope this helps.

Jon

 

[mrtoml]

Thanks, Jon.

I didn't realise that. Yes that helps a lot - I just tried it (so the negative strip sticks out of the front). If I then cut the negative strips into pairs of frames then I can print them with my RRB easel. A bit of a pain from a neg storage point of view, but it will work.

 

[nworth]

The LPL enlarger is nice in that nothing but the lens projects downward (except for the column, of course). That means you have plenty of room to open the easel in any position. You can reorient the easel so that it is vertical and opens left to right instead of the way you usually use it.

 

[mrtoml]

I tried that, but because of the wide blades on the RRB easel when you try and print 645 (with the negative vertical) at 12x16 the blades get in the way of the projected image because of the enlarger column. The easel is designed to take 16x20 paper with 2 inch borders for 12x16. Jon's idea works so I will have to go with that.

 

[ath]

Hi, the negative carrier can be inserted from the side, instead of the front. Hope this helps.

Jon

Thanks for this. I just started 645 despite the fact that I have to print vertical. And now I learned that I can print horizontal with my LPL. What a relief.

 

[John Kasaian]

Would a piece of sheet steel and magnets work for an easel? You could cut a relief in the steel to accomodate the enlarger column.