Omega D5 wall mount, how?

[Imke]

Hi all,
I have just received an Omega D5 with lots of goodies, including a wall mount bracket, and am ready to install it. The big question is: how?

I see the holes, get the concept of fastening the bracket to the wall, and the enlarger onto the bracket, but how do you fix it so the wall doesn't fall over, or the enlarger doesn't break out, brackets and all? Do you all affix it to a piece of wood, and fasten the piece of wood to a bunch of studs in the wall?

That beast is so heavy, somebody needs to convince me that it's possible to set this up without the house collapsing.

Also, what are your cheapo alternatives to the OEM wall brace?

Any thoughts, pictures or diagrams are appreciated!
Imke

 

[Neal]

Dear Imke,

Spread the load across two studs and you'll be fine. It's really not that heavy. Of course, I assume your home was built to code. <g>

Neal Wydra

 

[Monophoto]

Imke -

The fundamental answer is that the wall has to be strong enough to carry the weight of the enlarger. Actually, that's not hard to do if you are building the wall - it might be more of a challenge if you are working with an existing wall, but even then I don't think its all that difficult.

In the darkroom in our former home, I mounted the enlarger on a shelf attached to the wall using carriage bolts. The shelf itself was supported on a pair of brackets made from 2x4 framing lumber about 8" long. I bored holes through the 4" dimension (actually, 3.5") for the carriage bolts to attach the brackets. Because the space on the other side of the wall was my workshop and the walls there were not finished, I was able to get access to the studs to be able to torque down the nuts on the carriage bolts.

Because the walls in the darkroom were not load bearing, I framed the studs at 24" centers. I put a 2x4" brace between the studs behind the enlarging station in order to strengthen them a bit for the added load.

The top of the shelf was made of 3/4" plywood, and was 24" wide (exactly one stud space). I also put a piece of 3/4" plywood beneath the shelf, and attached it both to the front of the brackets and to the shelf, to provide additional strength.

I built a counter in the darkroom that joined the enlarging station on either side. The counter was supported over most of its lenght using legs constructed from 1x2" lumber (screwed and glued in a "t" shape), but I used sheets of 3/4" plywood as the ends of the counters on either side of the enlarging station. I attached these sheets of plywood to the 2x4" support brackets to form a box-like enclosure beneath the enlarger. This also meant that the plywood transferred some of the load to the floor. I attached cleats to the sides of this enclosure to hold the adjustable shelf beneath the enlarger.

Finally, I found that the Omega has a tendency to vibrate, and merely attaching it to a wall shelf creates a pretty loose cantelever that will shake like crazy. I used a piece of 1" x 1/4" aluminum strapping to rigidly tie the top of the enlarger column to the wall behind the enlarger - this completely eliminate the vibration.

I suspect that my design, which was more of a cheap-o kludge job than something that was actually engineered, was a bit overkill for the load that it actually had to carry.

 

[Monophoto]

Let me also quickly describe how I mounted the DII in the darkroom in the new house. In this instance, I was able to design the installation so that I could elevate the head to the top of the enlarger column, so I didn't need to have the adjustable shelf below the enlarger.

I opted to put the enlarging station in a corner. I used inexpensive prefabricated cabinets on either side of this corner. Then, I attached 2x4 cleats on the walls (using long sheet rock screws into the studs) and on the sides of the cabinets. I also attached a face joining the two cabinets. I mounted a particle board counter into the pentagram-shaped area, attaching it to the cleats using sheet rock screws and construction adhesive, and then put a strip of quarter-round on four of the five edges to cover the screws holding down the counter top. I also put a strip of 2" X 1/4" strap to cover the place where the top and face come together.

The enlarger was then bolted directly to the counter top. Note that because the counter top was partially suspended off the walls, this also qualifies as a wall-mount installation. I had to reuse one of my aluminum straps to tie the top of the enlarge into the wall to prevent vibration.

Here's a picture.

 

[Mark Fisher]

I attached mine by making a bracket....it is two 3/4 inch thick squares of plywood to form a corner with two triangular pieces of plywood as gussets. That assembly is then attached to the wall....in my case it was a cement basement wall. If you don't have a solid wall to attach to, I'd just attach it to a counter top similar to what motofoto did. If you do build a wall bracket, be careful to make sure the enlarger alignment is maintained relative to your projecting surface.....I just shimmed under the "bell" at the bottom of the enlarger.

 

[Imke]

Thank you all for responding!

Monophoto, thanks for your detailed description, you have a heck of a darkroom there! (And I thought mine was fancy... ).


Mark, I actually got an Omega wall mount bracket, I've attached a picture below. I guess my best bet is to simply attach the bracket to a piece of 2x4 long enough to fasten to two studs (which I hope are strong enough..), and then mount the enlarger to it. ??

If anybody hears the wall crumble reading this, let me know!

And Neal: dunno, it's not my house, and was probably built in the 20's. Did they have codes then? (If not, at least they had good Jazz and, presumably, good parties..)

Imke

 

[Neal]

Dear Imke,

I now understand the reason for your question. Looking at the bracket you have I would use a piece of 2x10 to span the studs. There are some nice screws sold for decks that can make the job easy.

I hope you are maintaining the tradition of good parties in your home. Keep the Dektol away from the punch though. :>)

Neal Wydra

 

[Imke]

Dear Neal,
thank you much!

I have actually just made friends with deck screws building this darkroom (it's all color, btw), and honestly, I don't know where they have been all my life!

Cheers!
Imke