Focomat IIc Bellows replacement

Hello Folks,

I have recently acquired a very nice Focomat IIc from Germany and have fully refurbished it with the online help of some great friends.

The last remaining bit is to replace the bellows as mine came with the old paper-ish type which now leaks (albeit not too bad) and have managed to source a new 2nd hand bellows.

I also have the photos from the manual which show the detail of how the bellows and the surrounding areas are assembled - but it's either me being an idiot or it's just difficult - I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.

I see there are only 8 simple screws holding it in place and one plate at the top and one at the bottom that go into the first fold of the bellows to hold it tight. This is all good, what I can't figure out is how to get to it? Do I have to disassemble everything around it or it can be simply replaced?

If I remove the lamp housing + condenser, I can see the bellows from the top and could even get the 4 screws out that hold the bottom of it. How do I get to the top 4 screws though? Perhaps removing the lens and using some flexible screwdriver?
The screws are screwed in from the bellows pointing out so I need to access them from within the bellows.

Below are the diagram photos I have - any help would be much appreciated. Perhaps someone has already done this and could give me a few tips?

Thanks, much appreciated!
Attached is a photo of the fully restored IIc for your viewing pleasure.

Ben

Current state of bellows:



Diagram for assembly:



IIc before restoration:



IIc after restoration:

I may be completely on the wrong track here because I don’t know your enlarger but I read your description and looked at the diagram. You have worked out how to remove the bottom screws. If you remove the bottom screws can you then move the lens stage away (maximum bellows extension) which would give you room to access the top screws from the now open end of the bellows? Might need a short screwdriver and would be fiddly.

Svenedin said:

I may be completely on the wrong track here because I don’t know your enlarger but I read your description and looked at the diagram. You have worked out how to remove the bottom screws. If you remove the bottom screws can you then move the lens stage away (maximum bellows extension) which would give you room to access the top screws from the now open end of the bellows? Might need a short screwdriver and would be fiddly.

Click to expand...

This is a pretty good idea which I haven't thought of, thanks! I'll see of more replies and then proceed with what you suggested.

Thanks,
Ben

No problem. When the bottom end is free and the lens board is fully extended down you can then concertina the bellows back up and hopefully get to the top screws. They may be obscured by folds. Be careful as bellows are fragile and easily punctured with a screwdriver. I’ve replaced bellows on cameras and it can be quite difficult.

Stephen

Just posting back that I've successfully changed the bellows, it was easy as pie - a mere 6 hours operation during which I cursed more than I did in the last 2-3 years.

In hoping others won't have to go through the same, I'll write up a little how-to to help the community out and also to make a note of what I did as I'll surely forget in a few weeks or so.
Thanks for the help again, that was the principle I worked with and removing the bottom 4 was "ok" - not easy through. The problem came after when I wanted to get to the top 4, the lens stage just does not move down enough to have a comfortable working space and I had to disassemble the entire stage to manage to get to the top 4 screws.

Note to others, a nice dental mirror and a flexible screwdriver might save you about 4 hours or so but as I had neither and as I didn't know what I was facing, I started removing things one at a time while looking at the diagram and it kept getting worse

All good now that it's behind me and I'll come back here to leave notes with photos etc.

Cheers,
Ben

Well done Ben. Hope you have many successful years of service from that enlarger. You’ve earned it!

Stephen

How to replace the Bellows on a Focomat IIc (the hard way)

Time it takes:

It took me 6 - 8 hours but not making the mistakes I made you should be done in 3 or so. I think I could do another one in 3 hours... but not today, please!

1. Remove the lamp housing (top + bottom) and the condenser. I found that turning the enlarger sideways allowed me to sit next to it and work on it comfortably. After all it took me 8 hours...
Change to the 100mm lens (Medium format) on the turret and push the head down until the bellows are fully stretched.




2. The bellows are fastened by 8 screws in total, 4 at the bottom and 4 on the top. The screws (unfortunately) are screwed in from the inside which means you need to get your screwdriver into the bellows. There is no glue used, instead a metal place is folded into the first fold of the bellows and it keeps the bellows nice and flat to the lens stage. Unfold the bottom fold on the bellows which should reveal the screws and go ahead undoing them. It takes a bit as your driver will be at an angle. Make sure that your screwdriver doesn't jump off the screw and potentially punching a hole into the bellows.



3a. It was pretty hard to get the screw out once undone so I used a telescopic magnet-stick and grabbed the screws with it.



3b. As the screws are removed.



4. Once all 4 screws are removed from the bottom the bellows can be lifted. This could be the point where you stop reading this manual (and potentially saving hours) if you manage to somehow get to the top 4 screws. I didn't and therefore I went on to removing the entire lens stage to give me enough space to get to the screws.



5a. The negative stage won't drop down fully unless we undo a few things, first is this arm that connects the sliding negative stage to the cam's arm which drives the auto-focus. This is a pin and at first I thought I just need to push it out but of course this is a Leitz enlarger and everything is done with a certain amount of elegance.



5b. Under the arm there is a really tiny hole and in the hole an even tinier screw. You'll need a jeweler's flat screwdriver and undo the tiny screw. Make sure you put is somewhere you can find it again - it's that small!



5c. Once the screw is undone - you can remove the pin by pushing it from inside out. One done, the arm will get lose and you can fold it away.
NOTE: At certain heights of the parallelogram as you move it up and down trying to get to the screws and different bits, this now lose arm gets in the way and you should be careful not to force things. If the head doesn't move for some reason, see if the arm is not stuck somewhere.



6a. The next thing to undo is a bumper that is built into the lens stage in case it goes lose - this would stop it from falling. It is a metal piece with some rubberized bumper plate. You'll see it in the diagram below in Red circle.



6b. This is how it looks like when looking in from the place where the bellows were as you are holding it up. The two screws are in the red circle.



6c. They are undone from the back with a flat head screwdriver. Once undone it might fall into the negative train but that's ok as you can easily get it from the bottom once the train drops down on its rail.



7a. The next part (which caused 3 extra hours for me at least!!) are the rails. At the bottom you'll see 4 screws (marked with red arrows) and these are holding small plates which prevent the bearings from escaping. You need to undo these screws and store them with the little plates. No worries, no bearing will jump out at this stage. Once you removed them though be careful that now there's nothing holding the train up and it might just go lose and hit a proper hole into your baseboard. This lens stage area weighs at least a kilo if not 2.
There are two identical plates with screws on the top of the train which you can either remove or keep. I don't have photos of it and it's extremely hard to get to unless the train drops further as space is limited. I removed it (again the hard way - 1 hour circa) but now thinking back I don't think it was necessary. You'll need to figure that out. These plates are basically just there to prevent the bearings from escaping.

There is one more thing holding the train in place which I marked in a red circle, this is a metal flat cable that is on a pulley which is spring loaded and it helps with the lifting of the train - makes it feel less heavy than it really is! Two screws are holding it in place and once undone if you let it go just like that it'll make a nasty sound as it retracts onto the pulley like it did to me. My pain is your gain here, I am giving you all the tips away . Try holding it in place with a thin screwdriver put through the first screw's hole you removed while undoing the 2nd one.

Once these are all undone, the train will slide off so make sure you hold the thing - it's heavy! Have I said that before?



7b. Once the train is off you'll get 16 pieces of bearings falling onto your baseboard along with two guide rails. Keep them safe - easy to lose. In my case they came down crashing as I didn't expect them at all.



8. This is what the lens stage looks like once removed. Now you have "easy" access to the top 4 screws. Challenges are seeing a darn thing since its in the bellows and you'll need a flashlight shining up from below to actually see.



9. Once you removed the bellows you'll need to unfold the top and bottom folds to get to the metal plates which you will reuse in the new bellows installation.



TO BE CONTINUED BELOW

10. Now it's time to put the bellows back - the top part that is. What I did is to put the screws through (all 4 of them) in advance as I felt this made the whole thing easier. Every screw needs to go through 3 layers, 2 layers of bellows and 1 layer of metal sheet sandwiched in between the bellows. It sounds easy but a new bellows is a lot tighter than the old one you just removed and it's hard to maneuver. I again used my trusted magnetic stick and put the screws through.



11. I was pretty lucky with this part, although seemingly very hard I managed to get the 4 screws through quickly. I didn't turn them in all the way as I wanted some flexibility, specially after the first one. Since the screws are bottom heavy in this setup, they do fall out from time to time and it's easier reinserting them if there's some play in the assembly at this point. When all are in, just put them all the way in.



12. Now this was very strange, I didn't manage to find a logical way to put the bumper back in. There's no way to add it in from the top or the bottom once the train is installed back onto the rail. What I did was to use a hard-ish wire to keep it in place but still be easy to undo once the train is in. Installing the bumper back also took at least an hour



13a. Now comes the fun part (4 hours-ish to me) - to put back the bearings. I wanted to do them all at the same time by holding the train up and adding in the two guardrails on both sides and then adding in the bearings into each hole. This is really difficult and even with grease, they fell out all the time and scattered around the floor etc. Even once all bearings were seated as soon as I wanted to push it onto the rain, it wouldn't fit and I needed to start from scratch.
Only at the end did I realize that I can just install the train without any bearings and then push the guardrail in bit by bit and as doing, adding the bearings one at a time. Not sure how to explain it better, the photos will do the rest.
Just be careful as the train without the bearings is not really fastened in place so you need to hold it up with a hand. A helper at this stage would sure come handy! A pair of hands...

See how the bearings need to be installed, one facing left one facing right etc. If you see the train in front of you, all this will make sense.



13b. Here is the diagram from the service manual - showing the same thing basically.



13c. And this is how I did it. Push the guardrail in just to have the next hole showing and add in the bearing and push one hole in and repeat 8 times exactly on each side. As you go further in you might need to wiggle the train a little to give way to the incoming guardrail loaded with bearings.

Once all in, add back the little plates with screws we earlier removed when taking it apart. I didn't know I should keep the top 2 in place and only feed from the bottom and close up afterwards, I left the top 2 open and as I loaded the bearings below, they came right out at the top once I moved the train a little

So keep the top 2 in place - load in the guardrails with bearings and once all the way in (might require a final push on the guardrails with a small screwdriver) - reinstall the small plates to prevent them falling back out.



14. You then add back the flat cable (which you need to pull out before you install the train - otherwise it'll remain hidden behind). After the cable you put the arm back to connecting to the cam.
When all this is done you just put the bottom 4 screws into the bellows which will take a good effort but this is really the finishing line already. You are done!



Before / After - this is my old and new (used) bellows.



Hope this makes your life a little easier when needing to replace the bellows on your IIc.

Ben

Hello Ben,

Thanks for the instructions!

Recently I was able to obtain a Focomat IIc that I will also have to restore and change the bellows.
two things:
• where can the new bellows be obtained?
• Is it possible to have the service instructions?

Thank you very much in advance!

patricio

patricio said:

Hello Ben,

Thanks for the instructions!

Recently I was able to obtain a Focomat IIc that I will also have to restore and change the bellows.
two things:
• where can the new bellows be obtained?
• Is it possible to have the service instructions?

Thank you very much in advance!

patricio

Click to expand...

Hello Patricio,

Hope the instructions I give above will help you in any way!

Unfortunately I don't have a good answer to any of your questions. I got the bellow from a good Foco-friend who had one to spare and I never managed to get the service instructions although I tried! There is a blown-up diagram of the focomat IIc which you should be able to find on google, if not just let me know and I'll try to get it to you somehow.

Good luck!
Ben

Hi Ben.

I could not find the service instructions in google. neither the bellows spare part.
If you or someone has them please contact me:
patriciorivera@gmx.net

Certainly your instructions will be very helpful.

Thank you very much!

This is great information - thank you, Ben. If there's one enlarger to spend time restoring, it's the IIc. It's an absolute beauty .

patricio said:

Hi Ben.

I could not find the service instructions in google. neither the bellows spare part.
If you or someone has them please contact me:
patriciorivera@gmx.net

Certainly your instructions will be very helpful.

Thank you very much!

Click to expand...

I've now shared this file with you via email. Good luck

Marco Buonocore said:

This is great information - thank you, Ben. If there's one enlarger to spend time restoring, it's the IIc. It's an absolute beauty .

Click to expand...

Hi Marco,

Fully agree, I've spend numerous hours apart from just the bellows and my IIc was brought back from the state of 60 years of no maintenance etc. It looks nearly brand new

Good day,
Ben

Dear Ben
You have done great work. Could You send me this technical instruction?
mifaumakowski(at) gmail.com
Regards
Michał

Qarqonoshe said:

Dear Ben
You have done great work. Could You send me this technical instruction?
mifaumakowski(at) gmail.com
Regards
Michał

Click to expand...

Hi Michal,

Glad you found the thread useful. I've now sent you the technical diagrams to your email.

Good luck,
Ben