I prefer a single column over the MX double column. I have a Beseler 45VXL myself. Information on the 45 series (except the MX):
http://www.jollinger.com/photo/enlargers/beseler-45.html
The MX can be a bit of an alignment challenge if it is out of adjustment.
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=008Wsq
A couple of posts on APUG on the topic:
frotog
03-30-2013, 10:31 AM
The negative holder and the lensboard stage on the Beseler are castings that slide relative to each other up and down an accurately machined and ground bar of steel. If the castings were beefy enough this would be an ideal design. They are not beefy enough as they are made of rather thin aluminum or pot metal, but they are usually good enough. Once you put the adjustable lenboard on, you can quickly adjust the two planes to be parallel and they will remain so. This presupposes that the stages are in good working order with their bearing surfaces (brass and later plastic) properly tightened with those little screws. As discussed above, this is the critical part of alignment and Beseler did a good job of handling this issue. Less well handled is keeping this whole fixture parallel to the base as the motor whirs the whole assembly up and down. Suffice it to say that the engineering on this aspect is not very good, depending on a fairly flexible frame work of thin steel frame and struts. But this is less critical as the depth of focus at the paper can be half an inch. The laser doesn't know which measurement is more critical and will scare you unnecessarily as you watch the red dot wander around. So before you haul your 45M away or put a sheet over it in disgust, get the adjustable lensboard and relax.
Hypocrite alert: I mentioned before that I have both a 45M and a Saunders. In my darkroom, currently set up, is the Saunders, but if I had more room they would be side by side. However, I bought the Saunders (at many times the expense of my $50 45M from the '50's) for the convenience of the VCCE head and the fine focus + extension - before I bought the Versalab and got hypnotized by red dots.
Until the struts are properly set, you will be realigning the beseler enlarger everytime you change the height of the head. In reading this thread again it's apparent that this is underappreciated if not totally misunderstood so much so I now suspect that 99% of the alignment problems that vex beseler mx owners could be traced back to this misunderstanding. Instead of clamoring about alignment tools and adjustable lens boards this dorky debate should really be about the relative merits and shortcomings of a protractor vs. an angle finder.
The Versalab is a convenient albeit pricey tool to measure the parallelism of the three planes. But the degree of accuracy it provides is really only necessary to printers who need or who prefer to expose with their lenses wide open and who are using glass carriers. A piece of safety glass and a bubble level will suffice for instances of enlargement under 20x or for folks who prefer to stop down a stop or more.
In the case of the 150mm apo componon f4, parallelism at the lens stage is accomplished by adjusting the three spring-loaded thumb-screws that retain the lens stage plate to the camera. These adjustments should only be in the order of fractions of a millimeter. If you find that you need more adjustment at the lens stage then you have something set up incorrectly.
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EHM2
03-30-2013, 04:22 PM
Wow, "dorky" and "clamoring". I guess that I will need thicker skin to be comfortable in here.
My 45M, bought in 1993, had the original design - the struts in the front so they are in the way and in compression. A focusing rail that could be adjusted fore and aft but not side to side. It had a swinging lens stage that was intrinsically loose and tilted. I have rebuilt this machine from scratch and upgraded it to a focus rail that swings and I changed the lens stage to the latest rigid version. I have used various methods to align it, from a simple level to Beseler's bilateral alignment tool (now $206 from B&H) to the Versalab. The previous poster indicates that if your struts are adjusted to the right inclination, just a tweaking of original hardware on the lens stage will set it right, and, anyways, it won't really matter except for critical work. I agree with the third point. Can you adjust this thing with float glass, rubber bands and a decent level so that you can do a sharp 4x enlargement of 4x5 with your lens at f/11? Probably. I did. I don't any longer because my laser is too much fun.
I was trying to explain how to do it precise and easy and to reassure people on the bouncing red light. Please humor me as I try one more time. The focusing rail can probably be adjusted just once by loosening two screws or bolts depending on the vintage of your hardware. You do this at just one height and you try to get the focusing rail perfectly vertical (or, hopefully, the negative stage perfectly parallel to the baseboard). As you use the bouncing red light, entertain yourself with how the little dot moves as you tighten the screws on this rigid machine. Then you make or purchase (Delta 1's Bes-Board - $51 from B&H) an adjustable lensboard and put your lens on it. Now you adjust the lens until your dot is just right. This will take one minute. If your machine is in good repair you are probably done except for critical work. Should you check it again at a different height or because you just can't leave it alone, you will only need to adjust the lenboard and it will only take one minute. If your machine is not as it should be, it will still take one minute. The trick is to adjust the dot of the lenstage to the dot of the negative stage, wherever it drifted to, and to forget about the bullseye. That is, you check parallelism of lens stage and negative stage (For critical work don't forget about the bullseye). Now you are done, but leave the laser in place and watch the dot move as you touch a stage, insert and remove a film holder, or lean on the table, (pixel peeping and grain watching have nothing on this game).
Finally, back to the OP, remember him? I really don't know why he has such troubles although I believe they are real. If I were to guess, I would think that besides some loose bearings or screws causing wobble, that the hose of his custom remote fan could be exerting a variable lever arm on the head as you change position and the laser will certainly pick this up.
