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Home made enlarger

Rhodes

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Sep 28, 2009
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Location
Figueira da Foz, Portugal
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The city museum, were I'm working now, have a good collection of photography items, do to several of our town photographers donated almost every material of them to the museum.
I was looking at the darkroom material of one those photographers assets and saw this:

Sorry for the pic quality, taken with my cell phone!
The label says "Home made Enlarger, with a compur tessar carl zeiss jena, 10.5cm f/4.5 lens".
So anyone come across home made enlargers? Was it common to do them?
 
My father built his own enlarger out of coffee cans while in the Navy on New Guinea during WWII, and built paraffin coated wooden developing trays and probably much of whatever else he needed.
 
Not long ago if you did not have the money you just built it. My father and grandfather where genius on building/making stuff. My grandfather had a wood/metal shop that was to die for. I really think that he could of made anything that he wanted. Soap box derbies where a big thing and they made a ton of them to sell. So I'm sure if he wanted an enlarger, instead of buying one he would have built one.
 
in the 40s, especially, because of wartime shortages, making your own equipment was all the rage -- popular photography and popular mechanics both had articles on how to make your own enlargers ... this one looks very elaborate.
 
I have a 4 volume set of Popular Mechanics from the early 60s that has a section to DIY photography equipment. Pretty neat stuff.
 
As said above there had been books/manuals around that described making photo gear yourself.
Reason may be shortage, price, the need for a custom solution or just fun in doing so.
 
summicron1 said:
in the 40s, especially, because of wartime shortages, making your own equipment was all the rage -- popular photography and popular mechanics both had articles on how to make your own enlargers ... this one looks very elaborate.
Click to expand...

yep...I wouldn't know about it except I still have the 1940s issue of Minicam Photography where my dad published a letter describing his setup. The negative carrier was masonite. He ground his own ground glass out in the "god forsaken jungles".
 
But the most recent books on this issue are from the 70's, maybe 80's.
 
I also have some DIY magazines and other books that include sections on making your own equipment. I have one, a
"Popular Science", I think, that has plans for an entire darkroom that fits into a rolling cabinet the size of a short file cabinet. (counter, trays and enlarger + paper storage).

As noted, it hasn't always been the case where large numbers of people had the resources to purchase gear.
I haven't had much reason to try building an enlarger, but I've spent this morning working on a lensboard for one of my view cameras.
 
I have look build a enlarger but got mine from free from craigslist. My first enlarger was a projector
I was looking using a old Polaroid camera and a LED or instant on CFL with ground glass for the defuses
I think we will see low cost enlargers for few years.
I have read that darkroom are on a upswing as of 2013 (http://www.ilfordphoto.com on https://twitter.com/viewfinder_m6/status/420657143113469952/photo/1)
I am still planing making a few things like for 4x5 film holder for developing and a feed for 35mm film on the enlarger

Hope helps
Dave
 
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I'm going to give it a try. I need some developing trays for 8x10 paper, and all I have are the big plastic ones for 16x20 (that cost me an arm and a leg with shipping). Hate to use those and waste a lot of chemicals for my smaller papers.

Thanks for posting this. I get lazy and use my mouse and right hand to buy stuff online when I could cheaply and easily make it myself at home w/ both hands.
 
My first enlarger in 1955 was built by my Dad. People of his generation (he was born in 1912) just did that sort of thing when they needed something.
 
Very cool. A couple years ago I'd built a pinhole camera, and was also going build an enlarger - either pinhole, or using optics from an old P&S camera. It was going to be extremely crudee, and not at all intended to be good - just a means to demonstrate how things work to my best friend (she's never done anything like this).

Then a local pro-shop had a going-out-of-business sale, and I picked up a couple Vivitar 356 enlargers. I'll probably not build my own now.
 
About 40 years ago my friend and I made a homemade enlarger because his dad said no when my friend asked him to buy a used one from the local newspaper classified ads.
We used a gallon paint can and an old folder for the lens and focusing bellows.
As soon as we had finished my friends dad changed his mind and we went and bought the used one.
We did try out the homemade one and it worked pretty good.
 
If you're shooting LF you can contact print which is pretty much the same thing
 
When I first got into 4x5 all I wanted to do was contact printing, but one night I put together a panel of 6 fluorescent tubes, each 11 Watts, put many layers of tracing paper above the lights, sandwiched the negative between two holder-sized glasses and clamped this setup together. Had I wished to stay with this solution longer I would have made a slightly more durable setup for the light source and negative carrier.

The experience of a projecting a 4x5 negative across the room for the first time is hard to forget.

After that I had the good luck of finding an enlarger that could handle the 4x5 negative, but I made plans for a crude, riveted stand to which I could fix and align the monorail camera with good precision.

We are very lucky to have such quality equipment available to us within reasonable reach these days.
 
I've got, somewhere, an entire book of little electronic gadgets for photography. And somewhere I have plans for an enlarging meter, as I remember it used a photo diode on an arm or some such to measure the projected image and then automatically time the exposure. I imagine it required "programming" with a standard negative/print, as the Paterson meter does. This gadget, however, wouldn't need a diffusing disk, and would be ideal for making "proofs" rapidly.

I have the Paterson and it works pretty well, but you do have to adjust the aperture, and the gadget would free you up to soup the prints. Hmm, I wonder if I could find the plans....

When I was a teen, my father and I set up a darkroom in the basement, BW printing, BW and Ektachrome (the process with reversal via a photoflood bulb) processing. My father was a chemical engineer, knew the ropes and suppliers, so we mixed our own chemicals, save fixer, which we could buy cheaper. With a little balance and a set of weights, all of which I now have, we mixed up Beutler, etc. We found plastic dishpans good for trays, and cheaper. Being deeper splashing was minimized.
 
Back in my youth I built homebrew enlargers for 35mm and 4x5. The 4x5 used the camera with back removed mounted under a homebuilt condenser lamphouse. Both were pretty crude but they worked, although probably not as well as a commercial unit; certainly not as conveniently.
 
I didn't build a whole enlarger but have just converted an old Beseler 5x7 enlarger to an 11x14 enlarger. The riser and mixing box is made from 1/2" foamcore board. The light source is an led panel for transparencies. I have made good prints with it.
 
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You enlarge 11x14? Why not get a bigger camera! Just kidding. Must be a heck of a machine.
 
Here's a picture of version 1,ugly but it works. V2 is in process now and will look very good. It's based on a Beseler 57MVT which had a big dome light source and provides a wide aperture for the big negative. The light source is an led panel from anythingdisplay.com. and the negative holder is a pc. of glass with non glare framing glass on top and a pc. of diffusion acrylic on top of that, under the light panel. It's as bright as my LPL 4x5,
 

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fotch said:
You enlarge 11x14? Why not get a bigger camera! Just kidding. Must be a heck of a machine.
Click to expand...

My next project is a 16x20 camera made of foamcore with thin carbon plate lamimated to it. No nellows, two sliding boxes..only need one lens for it and will use a 610 Nikkor process lens.
 
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