friendly visitor in my enlarger

Last night I was focusing my enlarger when I noticed a small spider-ish shadow scurrying around the easel. I immediately thought that there was a spider on the bulb of the enlarger (a D2V). I checked the bulb. No spider. Hmm, must have gotten out.

I go back to trying to print. Here comes the spider again. He's running around in almost a perfect circle. I check the bulb again. Nothing there. I check the filter compartment with the removable condenser. Nothing. I check inside the bellows for grins. Nothing. Where the heck is the thing?

Go back to trying to print. Spider reappears, again running in a perfect circle. Ah ha! I remove the condenser housing from the enlarger and the litte bugger is trapped between the two condensers. How he got in there I have no idea.

Remove lens. Remove spider. Put lens back banging it against bottom lens...

Unfortunately the spider was dead when I got to him. I guess the heat did him in, though the lenses might have crushed him when I removed the condenser assembly.

How he got in there I don't know, but I guess they can make themselves very small. There isn't much clearance between the silver collar and the condensers.

Best,

Will

Must be that special "auto-dodge" feature I've read about...

when i got my new enlarger form Italy, I assembled it and put the negative carrier in with no negative, and turned it on. There before my eyes about the size of a dime was the x-ray of a fly. What the heck? I tore the thing apart but no fly. Then i looked more closely at the negative carrier. there on the glass was a tiny white speck of a fly. like a lice. very small. turns out the equipment was covered with them. But very cool to look at under magnification.

S.

bobfowler said:

Must be that special "auto-dodge" feature I've read about...

Click to expand...

LOL!

Now is that any way to treat a "friendly visitor"?

Well, it's good that you didn't let it 'bug' you, Will!